Video courtesy FINA Youtube Channel.
2015’s Brazilian Athlete of the Year Ana Marcela Cunha has won more World Championship medals than any other South American swimmer in history or any other Brazilian Athlete in an Olympic sport. For those accomplishments, she won our 2015 Swammy Award for Female Open Water Swimmer of the Year.
Cunha scored a place on the Brazilian 2016 Olympic team by ranking in the top 10 at the FINA Open Water World Championships in Kazan. She took third in the 10km (the only Olympic open water event) behind France’s Aurelie Muller and the Netherlands’ Sharon van Rouwendaal. She also won the 2015 25k world championship gold.
Soon after, she won the FINA Open Water World Cup circuit title, 50 points ahead of second place.
Most recently, Cunha took third at the FINA 10km Marathon Swim in Abu Dhabi, outtouched for second by only .1 by her Brazilian teammate Poliana Okimoto. Muller took the win at that event.
No Brazilian woman in history has ever won an Olympic swimming medal, and Ana Marcela Cunha hopes to change that.