Ana Lominadze (17) plans to swim 5 km with her hands and feet tied.

A 17 year old Georgian girl plans to swim across the Dardanelles with her hands and feet tied on August 30, the ten year anniversary of Henry Kuprashvili carrying out the feat in 2002, setting a Guinness record.

Kuprashvili is the girl’s instructor. This style of swimming with tied hands and feet, known as Colchian, is traditional for Georgia and is used for military training.

Ana Lominadze, 17, who is still at school, wants to become the first woman in the world to swim Colchian style across the Dardanelles, a strait in Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea and the Marmara Sea, 1.2 km wide at the narrowest.

August 30 she will set out from the town Eceabat and swim to the city Canakkale on the other side, a distance of five km. It is estimated to take her an hour and a half.

Ana Lominadze has been practicing swimming for 15 years. She and her instructor decided to try for a world record two years ago. She has been Georgian champion a number of times in different styles of swimming.

“I want to dedicate this record to Henry Kuprashvili, who broke the world record 10 years ago.”

She is sure she won’t fail as she has set up a clear goal for herself and will do everything to achieve it and face the challenge.

August 30, 2002, Henry Kuprashvili swam a 12 kilometers section of the strait in three hours and fifteen minutes and made it into Guinness’ book of records. He now chairs Georgian Federation of National Swimming Style and is the personal coach of Ana Lominadze. It was him who suggested that she should try to set a world record.

Ana Lominadze is now undergoing medical examinations to be sure of her health until she leaves for Turkey.

The young swimmer is training daily at Laguna Vere, a swimming pool in downtown Tbilisi that has been there for almost 33 years. Lominadze has also trained together with her coach in Anaklia, a town on the Black Sea Coast in Zugdidi municipality. This was the place where the Colchian style of swimming was first used in order to train soldiers.