Ross Edgley: The British ‘Thor’ swimming 1,000 miles around Iceland – and what happened when he met killer whales

Published

4 weeks ago

July 16, 2025

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Towering waves, freezing temperatures and even some inquisitive killer whales. Iceland is doing its best to defeat Ross Edgley.

Inspired by “Thor”, the British extreme athlete is in the middle of a challenge worthy of the Norse god – spending four months swimming 1,000 miles around the whole of Iceland in the name of science.

And while it comes with its challenges – a video of parts of his tongue falling off because of the salty sea water went viral – there have also been moments of beauty in the rugged Viking landscape.

“We’re on the northern coast right now,” Ross tells Sky News as he prepares to get back in the water.

“There’s nothing to stop the wind coming from the Arctic, and it’s just smashing into the north of Iceland. We’re miles out, just like a bobbing cork getting absolutely battered.”

Ross, from Cheshire, is no stranger to endurance events like this. In 2018, he swam nearly 1,800 miles around the coast of Great Britain and earned a Guinness World Record for swimming 317 miles along the Yukon River in Canada.

But the punishing cold as 39-year-old Ross swims 30km (18 miles) a day around Iceland is something else.

“The body just takes a consistent battering,” he says, characteristically cheery and enthusiastic despite everything.

“You just do your best to keep it in some sort of shape, controlling the inevitable breakdown of your body, hoping that you get back into Reykjavik.”

He’s eating between 10,000 and 15,000 calories a day – with pasta and his new favourite Icelandic liquorice as menu staples – just to keep going.

“You’re basically running through all of that food – I’m constantly saying it’s basically just an eating competition with a bit of swimming thrown in,” he chuckles. “But that’s genuinely what it is.”

His average day – storms permitting – sees Ross getting up and swimming for six hours, resting for six hours, and then getting back in the water to swim another six hours.

“You just do that on repeat. It’s really simple in theory, but brutal in reality.”

To get ready for the cool Icelandic waters, Ross took inspiration from animals that have made it their home for thousands of years: whales and seals.

“I ended up putting on about 10-15 kilos of just pure fat. A bit of muscle as well but a lot of fat.

“When you look at what sort of animals survive in Iceland, there’s that idea of sea blubber. You want insulation, you want body fat.”

Perhaps unlike a seal however, Ross takes great care to defend the reputation of the killer whales that hunt in Icelandic seas.

“We’ve seen a lot, pods of them have come by and checked me out, wondering what the strange Englishman was doing in Icelandic waters, and then we went our separate ways.

“I want to combat some of the bad PR that orcas might have because there’s never been a verified case of an orca attacking a human in the wild. It just doesn’t exist.

“They’re amazing animals that deserve our respect and shouldn’t be feared.”

There’s also a big scientific focus for Ross’s challenge as well.

“If we achieve this, it will achieve so much in terms of sports science – the first person to swim around Iceland. But that wasn’t a big enough reason to do it.”

Ross spoke to scientists who said that if he was “crazy enough” to want to do the swim, he would be able to collect daily samples of environmental DNA in the water, as well as levels of microplastics.

“By the end we’re just going to have this map of biodiversity around the whole coast of Iceland in a level of detail we’ve never really seen before. It’s going to be so comprehensive.

“So I think as the legacy of this swim, records and everything will be nice, but I actually think the science and the research that we contribute and give back will be unbelievable and actually make the chafing and losing parts of my tongue worth it.”

The swim is being paid for by a mix of sponsorships and self-funding.

Ross says he was inspired to take on the challenge in part by actor Chris Hemsworth and his role as the Norse god Thor, joking that the feat would be the closest thing to swimming around Asgard, the realm of the deities from ancient Scandinavia.

As he makes his way around the island, he gets to meet a local community where stories of Nordic gods are still an important part of life.

“It’s amazing, we’re just hearing these stories of Nordic folklore, sagas written about every single fjord we go around. It’s unbelievable.”

Fresh off one marathon swimming session, Ross and his team jumped into action to help the local community rescue 30 stranded whales.

“The team were absolutely exhausted… but having rescued the whales was the most rewarding moment as well.”

Ross set off on his swimming quest on 17 May, and it’s likely going to be a couple more months before he arrives back in Reykjavik.

He suggested that September is the goal, but added: “But you make plans and Iceland laughs at them.”

Picture credits: Ross Edgley/YouTube

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

33 mins ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

7 hours ago

August 10, 2025