LEWIS PUGH: SOMETIMES SPORT CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

Beyond Sport Award Winner, Lewis Pugh demonstrated the true power of sport after completing a series of long-distance swims in the icy waters of Antarctica to raise awareness of the need to preserve the area. His efforts have created a tangible effect on the world after 24 nations signed a landmark agreement to protect a vast area of continent. Hailed as “Speedo diplomacy” by the United Nations, Pugh also made several visits to Moscow to persuade Russia to sign up to the protection plan, persuading the  Russian government to relent in blocking an agreement to make Ross Sea, the southernmost part of the Southern Ocean below New Zealand, the largest protected marine area on the planet.

Pugh conducted five ocean swims of one kilometre each, further south than any human has swum before, some only a few hundred miles north of the South Pole – while wearing nothing more than a pair of Speedos.

He told the Today programme on Radio 4 on Friday how his feats in water which was a little below zero degrees piqued Russia’s attention.

“The thing about Russians is that they love cold-water swimming,” Pugh said. “You will not find one Russian who as a boy or girl weren’t taken by their father to a cold water or lake to jump in"

“And so how do you draw the attention of a country and a people to a cold environment? Cold water swimming did it.”

Pugh said his reason for pursuing the agreement, which has been signed by 24 countries and the European Union, was over “an issue of justice”. “Just as we must have justice between generations, we must also have justice between species,” he said.

The milestone agreement, which was proposed by the USA and New Zealand and will come into force in December 2017, will impose a 35-year ban on commercial fishing in almost 600,000 square miles of the Ross Sea – one of the last wilderness areas on earth and the home to a number of protected marine species. While the area, which is six times the size of the UK and equivalent to Germany, France and Spain combined, makes up just two per cent of the Southern Ocean, it is home to a number of protected and endangered species, including more than half the planet's South Pacific Weddell seals, a quarter of the world’s emperor penguins and six per cent of minke whales.

Mr Pugh said: “I am overjoyed. The Ross Sea is one of the most magnificent places on Earth. It is one of our last great wilderness areas. This is a dream come true."