—I’m going to beat you— said a woman nearly two meters tall who was watching her from above, with her arms crossed and a frown, in the anteroom of the pool. They were at the XIII South American Master Swimming Championship 2023, in Peru, and the warning was directed at Adriana, a 63-year-old Chilean who barely reaches one meter forty-seven in height and was participating in her first major international competition. Anyone would have been intimidated, but Adri, as she likes to be called, knows her abilities very well and the effort it took to get there.
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—You know what? I’ll tell you something – she replied with the calm and confident tone that characterizes her, while adjusting her cap and goggles –. I’m not going to swim alone, I come with Jesús, he puts on the cap, the goggles, and accompanies me. And I’m not coming to beat you, I’m coming to beat myself.
Minutes later, when the starting whistle blew, Adriana jumped into the Olympic pool. She swam the first 100 meters butterfly style, managing her strength so as not to tire too soon, and then finished with backstroke. In the last meters, she barely breathed to not lose thousandths of a second and reach the finish line like a bullet. Only when she got out of the pool and rested in the gallery with her teammates did they tell her she had obtained third place and the first bronze medal for Chile. At that moment, happiness was absolute. Kneeling and in tears, she thanked God for giving her the strength necessary to get there.
For much of her life, Adriana lived with morbid obesity, a chronic disease that brings with it other serious health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and even cardiovascular diseases. This condition marked much of her daily life. “I couldn’t do anything, nothing!” she recalls angrily. Since she was young, she never felt free in her own body; it was a cage she couldn’t escape from and whose discomfort she had gotten used to, or rather resigned to.
In 2010, tired of diets, she underwent bariatric surgery. Thanks to this procedure, along with constant nutritional and psychological follow-up, she lost more than 120 kilos. However, her body still carried the sequelae of those years, so her doctor prescribed swimming to develop muscle and thus protect the knees that the weight had destroyed.
Today, at 63 years old, Adriana says she lives life backwards. While people of her generation experienced sports and competition during youth, she is only now discovering that world at a stage of life when society usually pushes older people toward more sedentary activities, such as knitting, reading, or watching television. Regarding this, she has a clear stance: “I say, why? Why do they think their life is over? Why did they give up, if life must be enjoyed until the end? Why let age limit you?” She repeats this thought like a mantra, although balancing her passion with the demands of routine has not been easy.
Despite being retired, she has been working for more than ten years as a cashier at the Yousef construction materials store, located in the Santiago commune. The current situation is complicated: last year, when the branches merged, Adriana was left alone attending the cash register, with a heavier workload and the same salary. But the heaviness of her position does not overshadow the agility she has gained in the water.
***
At her workstation, behind her chair, hang photographs of her time at the South American Championship and one of her bronze medals carefully framed. Everyone who passes by the register is dazzled by such a display and, inside the store, she is known by colleagues and customers as “the champion.” She wisely takes advantage of that fame during lunch hour, when she sells raffles for two thousand pesos to finance her training and trips to competitions. For her, each number sold represents a pact of honesty with the buyer. “Here are the results. I don’t give nonsense or sell smoke,” she says proudly. Her coworkers have become part of her team, and the Monday morning questions about her performance in competitions have become a tradition.
Her mood changes when the clock strikes six in the afternoon. She quickly grabs her two bags and heads to the training center. Her routine is almost military: Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the pool; Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, weight sessions. She returns home around ten at night. There her partner, her biggest fan, awaits with food ready. She ends the day exhausted, but insists there is nothing that gives her more pleasure and well-being:
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—It’s hard, but I love it. I like it, it motivates me, and there I forget the world.
***
Her coach, Diego Araya, has worked with her since she joined the Peñalolén Master Swimming Club in 2017 and describes her as a disciplined and cheerful woman: “She infects the group with her charisma and good humor.” However, he clarifies that being “good for the size” does not detract from her professionalism. “What she contributes most to the team is her discipline. She doesn’t rest. She always wants to continue and finish the task, even if it gets late,” he states.
That same perseverance took her on May 31 to the Sports Center of the Catholic University, in San Carlos de Apoquindo. It was seven in the morning and, despite the cold, Adriana was already wearing her pink swimsuit and was ready to stretch before the competition. That day the VII Smart Swim Team Cup was held, part of the Master circuit of Chile. With neat blue eyeliner and a soft pink shadow on her eyelids, her eyes reflected an emotion hard to contain. The atmosphere was marked by music, shouts, and constant cheers from a packed gallery. Bags, towels, and swimsuits piled all over the floor. Amid that chaos, Adriana remained focused, ready to dive into a new challenge: competing for the first time in the 200 meters breaststroke.
Despite the nerves, she walked with her head held high and, to everyone’s surprise, climbed onto the starting block without help. In her mind, she repeated a single motto: glide at the start and finish strong. At the end, when she heard the results over the speakers, Adriana couldn’t believe it; she had won the gold.
She is honest in recognizing that at the beginning of her career she was not exactly thrilled with the idea of getting into the water, but she assures that “everything in life is a process.” The first steps in the municipal pool were far from glorious. For a woman who had spent years ashamed of her body and hiding from others’ gaze, putting on a swimsuit required enormous courage. Also, the depth of the pool caused her panic. She struggled to float, her legs didn’t respond, and with every stroke she felt she was sinking. She had to learn to regulate her breathing, trust her limbs, and above all, trust herself.
—People reach their goals when they achieve a mental change, she says.
It was, without a doubt, a long and exhausting process, but over time the water began to give her back a lightness she thought was lost.
With the gold medal hanging from her neck, Adriana barely allows herself to celebrate. The accumulated fatigue after weeks of training, work, and sacrifices is relegated to the background. Her attention is already focused on the next goal: qualifying and competing in the famous Master Swimming World Championship.
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*This profile was prepared within the framework of the Nonfiction Written Narration course (Faculty of Communications UC), taught by journalist and professor Amanda Marton.
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