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Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide … the cautionary tale of the first cross-Channel swimmer | Emma John

In this content-driven age, we consume sport as fleeting entertainment – but the fate of Captain Matthew Webb suggests we always have Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. Three decades since my last swimming lesson, I found myself sitting in a lecture theatre chanting these words with a few dozen strangers, all of us trying not to take anyone’s eye out as we matched them to the actions. Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. I’ve been t

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Ledger record
#1623
First seen
21 Aug 2026, 20:35 UTC
Last checked
21 Aug 2026, 23:20 UTC
Version history
1 version
Current fingerprint
d48b4652d03f...f1805e
01

Publisher layer

Recorded article metadata

Publisher
The Guardian
Country
England / United Kingdom
Source published
21 Aug 2026, 20:06 UTC
Source updated
No update timestamp supplied
Byline
Emma John
Section
Swimming
Source-supplied excerpt
In this content-driven age, we consume sport as fleeting entertainment – but the fate of Captain Matthew Webb suggests we always have Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. Three decades since my last swimming lesson, I found myself sitting in a lecture theatre chanting these words with a few dozen strangers, all of us trying not to take anyone’s eye out as we matched them to the actions. Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. I’ve been t
02

Change layer

Observed version timeline

  1. 1
    Initial capture

    Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide … the cautionary tale of the first cross-Channel swimmer | Emma John

    In this content-driven age, we consume sport as fleeting entertainment – but the fate of Captain Matthew Webb suggests we always have Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. Three decades since my last swimming lesson, I found myself sitting in a lecture theatre chanting these words with a few dozen strangers, all of us trying not to take anyone’s eye out as we matched them to the actions. Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. I’ve been t

    Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags
    Version SHA-256
    d48b4652d03f...f1805e
    Capture SHA-256
    fd34d0e793dc...65c0a8
03

Interpretation layer

Labels with declared origins

Not an adjudication.

Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.

  • machine content-type Reported news observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
  • publisher category Edinburgh festival rss-category
  • publisher category Sport rss-category
  • publisher category Swimming rss-category
04

Public response layer

Reception snapshots

No reviewed reception capture yet.

Comment counts and samples remain absent until a lawful, source-specific capture method is reviewed. Absence is recorded instead of estimated.

05

Evidence layer

Capture provenance

Capture ID
#969
Observed
21 Aug 2026, 20:35 UTC
HTTP result
200 / parsed
Raw payload
458,062 bytes, private gzip evidence
Collector
news-ledger/0.1
Public boundary
metadata and excerpt