LITTLE DIOMEDE ISLAND, Alaska (AFP) - Quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon swam between islands in the icy Bering Strait Friday to cross from America to Asia in the final part of a quest to link all continents.

The Frenchman braved strong currents and near-freezing temperatures in a roughly four kilometre (2.5 mile) swim between the US island of Little Diomede and Big Diomede in Russia that he said took about one hour and 20 minutes.
“This was the hardest swim of my life, with a water temperature of four degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) and strong currents,” the deeply moved Croizon told AFP after reaching the Russian island.
“We made it,” said the 44-year-old, who was accompanied by long-distance swimmer Arnaud Chassery, 35.
Since May the pair has swum across three other straits separating the continents and Friday’s was the last.
They plunged through the ocean up to the limit of the territorial waters separating Russia and the United States, and then continued a few hundred metres (yards) into Russian waters to enter Asia.
The men arrived on Alaska’s Little Diomede island in a fishing boat last Sunday but their swim was held up for four days because of a powerful storm with winds of up to 140 kilometres (87 miles) an hour.