Learned classical dance at the age of 9. This was not an artistic choice, but a medical one. A few months ago, she was hit by a speeding Torino and was hospitalized with a concussion.
After the year-end exhibition, her mother said to her: “Julieta, two things can happen here. One, you weren’t born to dance. Two, this academy sucks. This was your last year. I’m not going to waste any more time.” Then he tried tennis. In the third class, the teacher said to my brother: “Don’t bring her to me anymore. She has two telephone poles instead of two legs.”
When Julietta O’Connor was 12 years old, she was diagnosed with a very severe form of mononucleosis. I jumped on the day he was discharged from the hospital. happiness Then I felt a very strong pain in my pelvis. An X-ray examination revealed an aneurysmal cyst in the left iliac bone. She had to have surgery and they gave her a hip transplant.. Due to this background, he was completely excluded from the sports world for a long time.
“Not excelling in any sport helped me.” Expect nothing and be grateful for everything What can he do? While the whole family went sailing, skiing, and surfing, my father strapped me into a life jacket and threw me into the river, where I floated alone for hours, blissfully alone. feel the water”, Giulietta recalls in her opening paragraph: cross. From one point to another, from one idea to another, from one version of yourself to the next.a book he wrote after successfully swimming across the Rio de la Plata.
One day at the age of 39, Giulietta started running. It started little by little, 15km, and then the long-awaited half marathon came. In October 2016, I ran 42km at the Buenos Aires Marathon, but as a result of that effort, I re-injured my iliac muscle. The doctor said emphatically: “Normal life is not about running marathons. Your bones are almost hollow and you can’t run that many.””.
“All those frustrations served me well. My only crutch was the girl who was made to quit dancing, the girl who wasn’t good at tennis, the girl who used a cane and crutches, the girl who floated in a river without daring to do more than touch the water,” O’Connor reflects on the obstacles she had to overcome to reach her goals.
So, following my doctor’s warning, I decided to try swimming.. He was 41 years old. She and some friends took an open water course in Villa Jesel, and their “crazy idea” to swim across the Rio de la Plata began to take shape.
The first crossing was done in relay as a team, taking turns swimming for 30 minutes. This was followed by increasingly tough challenges: the Vuelta de Obrigado (21km through the Paraná River) and the crossing from San Nicolas to San Pedro (70km), which he completed in 12 hours and 23 minutes.
On December 8, 2023, she left for Uruguay, ready to swim across the Rio de la Plata from Colonia to Punta Lara. “In my head, I was thinking, “I’m going to get through this one stroke at a time, so don’t be afraid.” Reminds me of Juliet. Statistics show that only 40 percent of people try to achieve their goals.
He jumped into the water on a windy night with five other swimmers who were also planning to take on the challenge. At that point, I wasn’t nervous or even afraid. Julieta’s emotions were too great to enter her body.
“I could feel the water between my fingers, smell the river, hear the waves. It was the river and me and nothing more. -Remember-. Every stroke kept me there. the current. “I felt the waves push me forward and help me move forward as I pushed through the waves that were coming up behind me.”
Each swimmer was accompanied by a support boat and accompanied by a guide, lifeguard and conductor. And after several hours of crossing, at some point she felt like she fell asleep. He could no longer keep his eyes open and began to dream. She woke up from time to time, almost in despair, to see if he had escaped from the boat, but he had not. The distance remained the same. “Something magical was happening. I discovered the talent of sleeping, swimming, and following boats at the same time. Today I found out this is what it’s called.” flowWhen the mind acts without thinking and without suffering from the action.” I will explain.
Thus he reached the final distance of 5,000 meters before entering Argentine territory. In it, the current was against him, the wind and waves were in front of him, the most difficult part of the journey. It’s no coincidence that most abandonments occur on this section of the route.
“It is known that the crossing begins after the Mitre River, where the river puts another big filter and decides who will cross the river.”. At that point everything becomes complicated. You have been swimming for more than 12 hours and now you are told to do your best, as if you were playing before,” the story continues.
He mustered up the last bit of energy he had left and kept moving forward, until at one point he felt his feet touch the bottom of the river. After swimming for 14.46 hours, he finally accomplished the feat.
“I didn’t swim alone. I never did. And now I know that I came not for myself, but for all those who silently carried me across the water on a stretcher.”. And I specifically came looking for a guide. They were able to accommodate me and were willing to hand me over to the river just to meet my demands and respect my decision. “For me, it’s teamwork.”concludes Julietta O’Connor.
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