Chris Ballard plunges into cold-water swimming for new book

Chris Ballard stepped into an ice bath to sell a book about cold water, but the larger story is how a niche endurance ritual has become a serious wellness obsession. The Sports Illustrated senior writer spent three years reporting The Plunge: Maverick Swimmers, an Unlikely Quest, and the Transformative Power of Cold Water across Norway, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Boston and Copenhagen, chasing a subculture that prizes grit, speed and tolerance for discomfort.

The book, published June 9 by Simon & Schuster, is Ballard’s latest and one of five he has written. He has also contributed to National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine, and his reporting moved beyond observation into competition. Ballard raced at the International Ice Swimming Association’s sixth world championship in Molveno, Italy, held January 13-19, 2025, and at the IISA USA National Championships, giving him a direct view of a sport that still sits outside World Aquatics’ formal structure.

That institutional gap helps explain the tension around cold-water swimming now. The scene Ballard entered is real, growing and intensely organized, with a world championship that drew roughly 750 athletes from 50 nations, according to a video recap. At the same time, the broader cold-plunge boom has escaped the sport itself, turning a demanding athletic pursuit into a wellness habit marketed to office workers, weekend exercisers and anyone chasing a harder edge.

Ballard’s book leans into that divide through figures such as Lynne Cox, the legendary distance swimmer, and Ram Barkai, the South African founder of the International Ice Swimming Association, which he launched in 2009. Barkai’s push to bring ice swimming to the Olympics signals how far the community has come, but it also raises the central question behind the surge: what is tested sport, and what is hype wrapped around a tub of ice?

Ballard has said the project began with his own cold-plunge curiosity and widened into an examination of the science of discomfort and the psychology of endurance. That framing matters because the appeal is not the same for everyone. For elite competitors, the water is a training ground and a race course. For everyday users, the promise is often recovery, resilience or mental clarity, claims that deserve the same scrutiny Ballard brought to the pool.

The cold-water boom is no longer a curiosity on the margins. Ballard’s reporting shows a community with rules, championships and history, but also a wellness trend that still outruns its evidence.