阅读理解

　　When she looked ahead, Florence Chadwick saw nothing but a solid wall of fog．Her body was numb(麻木的)．She had been swimming for nearly sixteen hours．

　　Already she was the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions．Now, at age 34, her goal(目标)was to become the first woman to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast．

　　On that Fourth of July morning in 1952, the sea was like an ice bath and the fog was so dense she could hardly see her support(援助)boats．

　　Alongside Florence in one of the boats, her mother and her trainer offered encouragement．They told her it wasn’t much farther．But all she could see was fog．They encouraged her not to stop swimming．She never had…until then．With only a half mile to go, she asked to be pulled out．

　　Still warming her chilled body several hours later, she told a reporter,“Look, I am not excusing myself, but if I could have seen land I might have made it．”It was not tiredness or even the cold water that beat her．It was the fog．She was unable to see her goal．

　　Two months later, she tried again．This time, despite(尽管)the same dense fog, she swam with her confidence and her goal clearly pictured in her mind．She knew that somewhere behind that fog was land and this time she made it!Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, eclipsing(使黯然失色)the men’s record by two hours!

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