Swimmer Ana Marcela Cunha is Relentless in the Gwangju World Championship

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian athlete ends the Gwangju World Championship with two gold medals, an Olympic qualification, the only four-time champion in a competition, the winner of the most medals in the history of the competition and much more.

Relentless is the word that best describes swimmer Ana Marcela Cunha, who won the 5 km and 25 km gold medals at the World Water Sports Championships in South Korea, as well as fifth place in Tokyo in 2020.

At the age of 27, she has collected a string of records that range from marks in its disciplines, to numbers that place her as one of the greatest in the history of the national sport.

Holding eleven medals in World Water Sports Championships, Ana Marcela has become the woman with the most open water titles in the competition’s history: with five gold, two silver, and four bronze medals, she has surpassed Dutch swimmer Edith Van Dijk, who holds nine medals.

With her fourth win in the 25 km event, she became the first woman in the world to win her fourth title in the same water sports event in the World Championship, and the first woman in the world to win the 25 km race three times in a row, winning both in 2015 (Kazan, Russia) and 2017 (Budapest, Hungary).

The only woman on the podium in five World Championships over ten years

In her list of medals, Ana Marcela took the podium at least once in each of the last five World Championships.

The woman with the most medals in World Championships of Olympic sports: if we include all the Olympic categories, Ana Marcela is the Brazilian woman with the most medals in World Championships.

The second on this list is another swimmer, Etiene Medeiros, with eight medals. Mayra Aguiar, a judo athlete, has six of them.

In addition to the eleven medals in World Water Sports Championships, Ana Marcela also won a bronze medal in an open water World Cup in 2010. This competition no longer exists, but it was an event of high relevance for a decade.

Among the women who took part in the sport’s first Olympic appearance, in Beijing 2008, Ana Marcela is the only one to be present in Tokyo 2020.

On account of all her titles, Ana Marcela became a part of the Open Water Hall of Fame last year.

The International Swimming Federation (FINA) has nominated Ana Marcela as the best world swimmer on five occasions: 2010, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018. No other athlete, man or woman, bears such a mark. The open waters competition features a World Circuit in the season, with stages spread all over the world.

She has won the Circuit on four occasions, a mark that no one else holds in the sport. And this year, she’s leading the standings. With 23 gold medals in World Circuit stages, she is the athlete with most wins among both men and women in the history of the sport.