At approximately 2pm on 2 September 2013, Diana Nyad staggered onto the beach in Key West, Florida, about 53 hours after she first stepped into the water in Havana, Cuba. She fell at least twice. Her lips were swollen, her hands were bleached white and deeply wrinkled, and her legs were barely able to support her after the 110 miles she’d swam across shark-infested waters. “It looks like a solitary sport but it’s a team,” she told the astonished crowd of onlookers as she fell into the arms of her coach and best friend, Bonnie Stoll.
Nyad’s controversial achievement, which was not ratified by the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) or the Guinness World Book of Records, and her relationship with Stoll is explored in Netflix’s new drama, Nyad. Billed as “a remarkable true story of tenacity, friendship, and the triumph of the human spirit”, the film stars American Beauty’s Annette Bening as the eponymous American swimmer, while Jodie Foster plays her confidante and former lover. It is directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi – the filmmaking couple behind Free Solo, 2019’s breathtaking documentary about Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan.
