Andrea Cadili might be blind and suffer from a rare bone disease which has seriously stunted his growth, but it took him a little under two hours to swim from Gozo to Malta yesterday to raise awareness.

On completing his longest swim, Mr Cadili, 32, let out a soaring yelp of satisfaction.

“Andiamo! We did it guys, whoopee,” he said, waving on a tail of nine other swimmers as they neared the sandy finishing line.

Peeling off his rubber wetsuit, Mr Cadili explained how he owes the success of the crossing to his coach and mentor Davide Sanguinetti.

“When you are blind and out at sea, the hardest thing is changing direction. When we reached Comino I thought to myself how am I ever going to make it? But, with Davide by my side, I succeeded,” he said.

The eight-kilometre swim was one of several Mr Cadili has made over the past few years in the hope of raising awareness on disability inclusion in sports.

Among his most difficult swims was the infamous ‘silent crossing’ of the Bosphorus river in Istanbul as well as a gruelling seven-kilometre stretch across the straits of Messina. “Every stroke I take I just focus on my goal and my destination. It’s liberating and I hope to help people find ways to free themselves,” he said.

When you are blind and out at sea, the hardest thing is changing direction

Mr Cadili, regional vice president of the Italian Paralympic Committee, was not the only disabled member of the cross-channel awareness raising incentive. He was joined by Andrea Chiuminatto, 35, for what was his first open-water swim.

Mr Chiuminatto was paralysed from the waist down after a severe car crash which almost cost him his life.

Catching his breath as he lay on a plastic sunbed beside a group of sunbathing tourists, Mr Chiuminatto told The Sunday Times of Malta he could barely believe he made it to the shore.

“I think this is one of the most challenging but also satisfying and empowering things I have ever done,” he said.

The event was jointly organised by the Risso Water Polo School, a Maltese-Italian joint waterpolo school, and philanthropic society Sliema Lions.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.