KEY POINTS:
SAO PAULO - Slovenian Martin Strel, after braving crocodiles, piranhas, disease and the threat of an imminent heart attack, today completed a record-setting 66-day, 5268km swim down the Amazon River and was taken to a hospital.
Thousands of people were on hand in the Brazilian colonial city of Belem as an exhausted Strel, 52, made his final stroke, and was pulled from the water.
On Saturday, Strel had officially set a Guinness Book of World Records mark when he hit the 5268km point, the swimmer's support team said on his website www.amazonswim.com.
Today he was back in the water again, riding the early morning tide back upriver 9.65km to end the marathon Amazon swim in Belem at about 11:30am (0230 NZT).
It was the most challenging of Strel's big-river swims. He has previously swum 4004km of China's Yangtze in 2004, 3798km of the US Mississippi in 2002 and 3004km of Europe's Danube in 2000.
After arriving in Belem, Strel was placed in an ambulance and medics worked to stabilise his blood pressure, which was at near-heart attack levels, his support team said on the website.
Strel has been suffering from nausea, diarrhea, dangerously high blood pressure, sunstroke, dizziness and delirium.
Due to his deteriorating health, Strel had been swimming six hours and then resting for six hours in his final leg down the world's most voluminous and second longest river.
On Friday, Strel had to be hauled from the water by his son Borut and others and had difficulty standing. His doctor ordered him not to swim but Strel, obsessed with reaching Belem, insisted on swimming the final few miles at night to avoid the blistering sun.
"I've had enough. I just want to finish and go home," he said on his website.
Nicknamed "fish man", Strel started his latest big-river swim on Feb. 1 at the Peruvian jungle town of Atalaya, where buckets of animal blood had to be poured into the river to distract piranha from making a quick meal of the swimmer.
Strel formally finish his marathon swim down the Amazon four days ahead of schedule on Saturday.
In the last leg of his journey, Strel said the ocean tides coming up river were driving him backward at times.
Along the trip, Strel and his team had several near misses with pirate attacks and often had to steer toward swift flowing currents to avoid being set upon by piranha. This resulted in Strel being swept away in a giant whirlpool once and separated from his team and boat another time.
The team was constantly at risk of parasites and disease in the Amazon such as malaria and yellow fever.
"I think the animals have just accepted me. I've been swimming with them for such a long time that they must think I'm one of them now," Strel said recently on the BBC.
- REUTERS
