Ana Marcela Cunha, Competitive Open Water’s Most-Decorated Woman, Hints at Pending Retirement

Legendary open water swimmer Ana Marcela Cunha won a record-extending 7th World Aquatics Open Water World Cup title two weeks ago, but says that this might be her last.

In an interview with Nick Hope, Cunha says that she is considering retirement next year.

“My first World Championship was 2006, (when I was) 14 years old, now I am 32. So it’s a long time to swim open water. I won everything…I’m really happy. For me, it’s really hard to continue because I’m really tired. But we don’t know, maybe next year I say ‘okay I can swim one more year.’

Cunha is arguably the most-decorated and successful athlete on the competitive side of open water swimming since it was recognized as an Olympic discipline in 2008.

She won the Olympic gold medal in the 10km race in 2020, has seven World Championship gold medals at the 5km and 25km distances, 17 total World Championship medals, gold at the Pan American Games, World Beach Games, and South American Games, the eight-time FINA/World Aquatics Open Water Swimmer of the Year, and five-time Swammy Award winner for Female Open Water Swimmer of the Year.

She has 81 total medals across FINA/World Aquatics competitions and with seven Open Water World Cup series titles has four more than the next-best competitors in history – Germany’s Angela Maurer and Italy’s Rachele Bruni with three each.

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Aquatics
13 hours ago

No one better at this sport than her. She is truly the GOAT of Open Water.

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Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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