Martin Strel

Martin Strel (; born 1 October 1954), is a Slovenian long-distance swimmer, an elite endurance athlete, best known for swimming the entire length of various rivers. Strel holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube river, the Mississippi River, the Yangtze River, and the Amazon River. His motto is "swimming for peace, friendship and clean waters." finishing 66 days later on 7 April 2007. This was a record-breaking distance of , longer than the width of the Atlantic Ocean. He had escort boats that were prepared to pour blood into the river to distract meat-eating fish such as piranhas.

In 2007, the Nile had been proposed as his next river, but Strel said, "I am not going to do the Nile. It's long but not challenging enough, it is just a small creek. The Amazon is much more mighty."

He plans to swim across Lake Arenal on 29 September 2010 as part of his visit to an environmentalist international film festival in Costa Rica. He plans to swim about 6 kilometres from shore and then back to his starting point.

In June 2011 Strel completed his Colorado River Swim challenge for the documentary Stan Lee's Superhumans.

Achievements by year: 2008: Sognefjord, Norway; Loch Ness, UK 2009: Doha, Qatar; River Thames, UK; River Cam, UK 2010: Grand Canyon, Arizona, US; Lake Mead, Nevada/Arizona, US 2011: Lake Ontario, Canada; Lake Simcoe, Canada; Lake Arenal, Costa Rica; San Juan River, Costa Rica 2012: Saguaro Lake, Arizona, US; Canyon Lake, Arizona, US; Apache Lake, Arizona, US Theodore Roosevelt Lake, Arizona, US 2013: Lake Powell, Arizona/Utah, US; Robben Island, South Africa 2014: Bondi Beach, Australia; Shelly Beach, Australia 2015: Lake Pleasant, Arizona, US; Tennessee River, Tennessee, US 2016: Rocky Point, Mexico; Alkhobar (Saudi Arabia) – Manamma (Bahrain) 2017: Manhattan, New York, US; Lake Wörth, Austria 2018: Alcatraz – Golden Gate Bridge, US 2019: Farallon Islands, California, US 2020: San Diego River, California, US 2021: Mura River, Slovenia

Big River Man Strel was the subject and star of a feature documentary entitled Big River Man directed by the acclaimed art-house director John Maringouin. The film, which won the "World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary" at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, was critically praised for its blend of comedy and drama. The film chronicled Strel's 3,300 mile historic swim of the Amazon River.

Strel Swimming Adventures In 2010, Martin Strel and his son Borut Strel founded a company that offers swimming adventure holidays in the Mediterranean and at Lake Powell, Arizona. They currently offer swimming adventure holiday tours at Lake Powell, Arizona, in Slovenia (Lake Bled, Lake Bohinj, and the Soča River), on Croatia's Dalmatian coast swimming from island to island, in Montenegro exploring Adriatic fjords and coves, and cruising Mediterranean Turkey. Strel takes part in some trips.

Global Center for Advanced Studies In 2013, Martin Strel joined the faculty of The Global Center for Advanced Studies in its newly formed Institute of Adventure Studies.