& Co in the City of London for a decade. During this time he concurrently served as a Reservist in the British Special Air Service. Swimming Over a period of 30 years Pugh has pioneered more swims around famous landmarks than any other swimmer in history. In an interview with Forbes he stated: "Between Lynne Cox, Martin Strel and myself, we've hit all of the world's major landmarks. There's really nothing left." In 2013 he was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. Early swims Pugh had his first real swimming lesson in 1986, at the age of 17. One month later he swam from Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned) to Cape Town. In 1992 he swam across the English Channel. In 2002 he broke the record for the fastest time for swimming around Robben Island. He was the first person to swim around Cape Agulhas (the southernmost point in Africa), the Cape of Good Hope, and the Cape Peninsula (a swim from Cape Town to Muizenberg). Pugh was also the first person to swim across an African Great Lake, namely Lake Malawi. Cold water swims After 2003 Pugh focused on pioneering swims in the coldest and most hostile waters of the world. All of them were undertaken in accordance with Channel Swimming Association rules, in just a pair of Speedo swimming trunks, cap and goggles. He became the first person to swim around the infamous North Cape, the northernmost point in Europe. The following year he became the first person to swim down the entire length of Sognefjord in Norway, a swim which took him 21 days to complete. In 2005 he broke the world record for the farthest-north long-distance swim by undertaking a swim at 80° North around Verlegenhuken, the northernmost cape in Spitsbergen. He followed that five months later by breaking Lynne Cox's world record for the farthest-south long-distance swim by undertaking a swim at 65° South at Petermann Island off the Antarctic Peninsula. In November 2017, Pugh became be the first person to swim in the Antarctic waters around South Georgia Island. Anticipatory Thermo-Genesis On both his Arctic and Antarctic expeditions Professor Tim Noakes, a sports scientist from the University of Cape Town, recorded Pugh's ability to raise his core body temperature by nearly 2 °C in anticipation of entering the freezing water. He coined the phrase "anticipatory thermo-genesis" (the creation of