Paul Hopfensperger

Paul "Hoffy" Hopfensperger (Born March 27, 1963) is a British (English) open water swimmer and charity fundraiser based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. He has so far raised in excess of £50,000 for charity through swimming, trekking and other events around the world.
He was the club captain of the former Bury St Edmunds Swimming Club (now West Suffolk Swimming Club) on three occasions between 1978 and 1981, a Suffolk County swimmer and has represented his country at open water swimming.
Successful English Channel swims
* 2007 England to France (solo) in 13 Hrs 52 mins (Channel Swimming Association Limited)
* 2008 England to France (solo) in 13 Hrs 03 mins (Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation)
* 2010 England to France ('Team Iryna International' - 6 person relay) in 12 Hrs 44 mins (Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation)
Hopfensperger has personally completed two solo crossings of the English Channel in 2007 and 2008 (only the 84th person in history to do so) and one relay (2010) as part of the six person 'Team Iryna International' English Channel relay team.
He has also played an important part as a crew member for three successful solo English Channel crossings, making six successful crossings out of six (Lorraine Verghese (GB - 2007) , Silvain Estadieu (France - 2009) and Donal Buckley (Ireland - 2010).
English Channel TV Appearances & Radio Broadcasts
Discovery Channel - Human Body: Strength
Hopfensperger's 2007 English Channel swim was filmed for TV by Dangerous Films Limited and was screened in Episode 1 of the Discovery Channel's documentary Human Body: Strength.
BBC Radio Suffolk - Live from The English Channel - July 10, 2007
The 2007 swim was also relayed live from the English Channel by an on board reporter, Jon Wright for BBC Radio Suffolk in the UK. Updates were broadcast throughout the day for the duration of the 13 hour 52 minute swim. On July 20, 2007 he appeared on the BBC Radio Suffolk "Leslie Dolphin Show" to be interviewed about the swim and the charity fundraising efforts to date.
BBC Television - Eggheads - September 24, 2010
On Monday August 17, 2009, Hopfensperger captained a team of 6 English Channel swimmers called "Channel Buoys and Gulls" with a total of 42 English Channel swims between them, on a BBC television quiz show called "Eggheads". Kevin Murphy, King of The English Channel with 34 channel swims to his name, was the substitute member with the main team consisting of Paul (Great Britain - 2 x channel swims at the time), Megan Forbes (Great Britain - 1 x channel swim), Mike Cross (Great Britain - 3 x channel swims), Sophie Rutenbar (USA - 1 x channel swim), Jim Boucher (Northern Ireland - 1 x channel swim). The program was screened on national TV on September 24, 2010.
FINA Open Water Grand Prix
In 2008, at the age of 45, Hopfensperger represented his country in two FINA Open Water Grand Prix in Serbia and Mexico beating English Channel World Record Holder and the reigning FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix Champion, Petar Stoychev of Bulgeria in the Mexican race, who failed to finish but still took his 8th successive title. Hopfensperger finished the 2008 season ranked number 57 in the world by FINA at this event.
Other Open Water Events
In 2008, at the age of 45, Hopfensperger 'controversially' won a British Long Distance Swimming Association (BLDSA) open water swimming event at Lynn Regis, Norfolk, beating the entire field. This created confusion amongst the judges who initially awared him the "Veteran's" trophy (45 years old and over) while Lee Portingale (a 'Senior' - under 45) who finished second was awarded the winner's trophy (a 'veteran' had never won a 'senior' event before). After a complaint by Hopfensperger, he was eventually (2 months later) awarded both titles (the first and only time this has ever occurred) and the rules were changed afterwards to ensure this did not happen again.

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