Carlos Larriera Remembers Pro Marathon Racing On WOWSA Live

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Carlos Larriera helped organize the Maratón Acuática Internacional Santa Fe – Coronda together with Werfill Castro, Dermidio Cabral López and Adolfo Marionias as well as competed in several professional marathon swims in South America, North America and Europe.

In 1969, the 85-year-old from Argentina was inducted as an Honor Swimmer in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame and spoke with International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame chairperson Ned Denison on today’s WOWSA Live interview. The journalist with a career of over 4 decades remembered a number of topics:

* launching his international professional marathon swimming career at the 1958 Maratona del Golfo Capri-Napoli
* not fearing to race against the Nile Crocodile in the 1950s and 1960s
* flying to 32 km Traversée internationale du lac St-Jean in a cargo plane
* starting the Maratón Acuática Internacional Santa Fe – Coronda
* competing against Tonatiuh Gutiérrez, Herman Willemse, Tom Park, Cliff Lumsdon, Greta Anderson, Abdellatief Abou Heif, Alfredo Camarero
* remembering the exploits of Herman Willemse who also stayed at his home in Argentina
* serving as the trainer of John Kinsella who left everyone far, far in his wake
* being with his son Alejandro Larriera who took 25 hours to do a reverse 57 km Maratón Acuática Internacional Santa Fe – Coronda swim, the first time it was done
* racing without GPS and not knowing exactly where he was swimming
* defining the difference between open water and “closed water” swimming [see interview below]
* advocating swimming from here to there, an honored traditional of old-time marathon swimmers
* fondly remembering Capri-Napoli in 1961 when he finished second in 9 hours 9 minutes
* remembering the feeding habits of Abou-Heif including eating chickens and canned peaches

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