We were lucky enough to meet up with the friendly swim legend Gordon Borde at Maracas Bay. Gordon won the very first Open Water Swim held in Trinidad put on by the Amateur Swimming Association of Trinidad & Tobago (ASATT) in 1962 - The year our country gained its' independence.
He also went on to win this Cross Harbour event consecutively in 1963 and 1964. Gordon started swimming in scouts in Trinidad at the age of 15 and has been swimming competitively since he was 19 years old. While he enjoys swimming at the pool, open water swimming has always been his first love.
This 81 year old is a living local legend , he has swam one hundred and eleven (111) Cross Harbour competitions - a whopping 81 here in Trinidad and 30 in other countries - Barbados, Grenada, Fort Lauderdale, USA and even in Venezuela!
He planed to do his 112th Cross Harbour at Maracas Bay on 22 September 2019 but the race was postponed twice due to bad weather and then, eventually cancelled at the end of October 2019. Gordon has quite a rich history in swimming; along with the late Joey Kaufman, he represented Trinidad & Tobago in the 1st Worlds Masters Games in Toronto in 1985. He also played water polo and represented our country in this sport during 1963 - 1973 and was the Vice President of our local swimming association ASATT on 6 separate occasions.
The spritely Gordon, swims approximately 7,000m a week
He has been coming up to Maracas Bay every Sunday morning for the last 20 years to swim with the Trinity Masters Club which was founded by the late Joey Kaufman, the late Mervyn Marquez and Gordon himself in 1984.
If you'd like to learn more about this amazing human, come find him almost every Sunday at Maracas Bay.
Are you Fitspired yet?