Brazilian Tatiana Lemos Lima will retire after this week’s Daltely Guimaraes Trophy in Porto Alegre, ended 16 years as a member of the Brazilian National Team, according to Best Swimming.
Revealed during the retirement party of another legendary Brazilian female swimmer, Fabiola Molina, Lemos’ last meet will be this week’s Senior Championships and Open Short Course Championships.
Lemos, who just turned 35 years old, is a 7-time Pan Am Games medalist, and is the current South American Record holder in the 100 free in long course, plus the 100 and 200 freestyles in short course. She is a two-time Olympian, a 9-time World Championship team member (5 short course, 4 long course) and has the distinction of being still the only woman in history to sweep the 50, 100, and 200 freestyles at the Maria Lenk Trophy, Brazil’s major long course championship, which she did in 1998.
With the retirement of Molina and Lemos, and the aging of the likes of Flavia Delaroli, the bulk of the Brazilian women’s records are past their swimming prime, or out of the sport altogether. There is a young class of Brazilian female swimmers, especially freestylers, coming through the ranks to replace them, and these retirements will hopefully make room for them to grab some more international experience and more focus from the Brazilian Federation.
Fabiola and Tatiana retiring at such “young” ages is a testimony that there isn´t anybody to challenge them in Brazil. They are still competitive.
Flavia Delaroli has already retired.
CBDA – Brazilian swimming confederation – isn´t doing its job to keep the “pipeline” flowing. There isn´t enough incentive for age-groupers, unfortunately.
Actually, Brazil has always depended on a very short list of very talented individuals..NOT on a successful swimming program!
Au contraire, by CBDA´s focusing solely on those few individuals, the entire Brazilian swimming community has suffered under its current president for over 25 years….