Almost 10,000 kilometers away when the clock struck 4.30 in the morning, Tita Llorens (Menorca, 1968) immersed herself in the waters of the Río de la Plata, the widest in the world and which serves as the border between Argentina and Uruguay. It was the first time he was in Colonia del Sacramento, a city in southwestern Uruguay, where more than 26,000 people live and which in 1995 was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Organization for Culture, Sciences and Education (Unesco). Twelve hours and 24 minutes later, but already in the town of Punta Lara in Argentine territory, the Balearic swimmer made history and became the first athlete of European origin to cover the almost 42 kilometers that separate both cities from South American countries. In addition, with his 54 years, he has been the oldest person to overcome this challenge.

"The truth is that I didn't fall into that record until they told me, because I don't look for these things either," says Llorens. "It's a privilege to bring two countries together by swimming is a very special adventure," he adds.

Although Tita Llorens has faced journeys of up to 100 kilometers, crossing the Río de la Plata posed several challenges for her. "The most remarkable thing was the color of the water. It was one of my main concerns," he admits. He explains that unlike what happens in the Mediterranean, the tones that predominate in this channel revolve around brown. "Since there was no way to get into this water because I couldn't go to the Río de la Plata to train, I did a lot of visualization work with photos," he says. He says that during this journey he recently covered, he had visibility difficulties. "I couldn't see my elbow, or my hand or anything. The good thing about this is that you don't see weirdos either," he jokes.

Llorens does not lose his humor and even takes advantage of it even in the most complex situations, such as what he experienced in his last adventure. To the difficulty of the color, it was also added that the flow of the river is freshwater. "I'm used to swimming in the sea and salt water. The Mediterranean is much saltier than the Atlantic," he says. Salt gives buoyancy to swimmers and, taking this into account, Llorens had to train for this challenge, fundamentally, in a pool.

Tita Llorens in the middle of the journey in the Río de la Plata.EL MUNDO

But none of these obstacles dissipated the desire to meet their goals. "Why not?" asked the open water swimmer, who actually wanted to go for more records. His initial goal was to swim twice as much, back and forth, but due to normative criteria he could not do it; Local authorities forbade him to submerge in the water overnight." I do not rule out, that on another occasion, I can do it if there are permits, but at the moment I am happy like that, "she says.

Tita Llorens emphasizes that the critical days are those before the crossing, when doubts appear. "And why am I here, who gets me into these things, so comfortable that I could be at home?" are just some of the questions that go through her head. But she recognizes that once the time comes to face the challenge everything changes: "The day before is when I have my most negative thoughts. But then I'm lucky enough to touch the water and all these thoughts evaporate and don't come back."

And that explains why Llorens has not finished a journey when he is already thinking about the next. He spends many hours alone with his head underwater. But between strokes she thinks of her granddaughter, 3 years old, and the songs she sings to her when he takes her to school, also of her nephews and those who make her happy.

After all, joining two countries by swimming is not for everyone and this is reflected in the statistics, in which the name of Tita Llorens appears together with two recognitions that until today nobody had. In addition to being the first European and the oldest person to do so, she is the sixth woman in 100 years to do so since Lilian Harrison, a 19-year-old girl, crossed it for the first time in 1923. "More than being the first European person, I attach importance to the fact of being a woman, so it costs us this type of challenge. We are getting better and better but there is still a lot of work to do," says Tita Llorens.

  • Argentina

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