BUDAPEST (Hungary) – On Monday, in the open water 5K at Lake Lupa, Ana Marcela Cunha captured her 12th FINA World Championship medal (and sixth career gold). At 30, the Brazilian sports hero has been competing at the highest international level nearly half her life. For much of it, she has been guided by Fernando Possenti, a 43-year-old wine expert and coach. The two are so close, that they barely need words to communicate.

No one knows her better. So in Budapest, Possenti graciously shared his insight on both her swimming and her soul. 

But first, a quick career synopsis of the indefatigable marathon swimmer: Cunha was an Olympic veteran at 16, placing fifth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the open water 10K. After failing to qualify for London 2012, she began training with Possenti in January 2013. Their partnership yielded five world championship medals in two years as well as Rio Olympic qualification but they split in December 2015, so the host country’s gold-medal favourite faced her deepest disappointment – placing 10th in Rio – under another coach. A year later, the two reunited – eight weeks before the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest where Cunha made the top three in every individual event. Last summer in Tokyo, she finally won the Olympic gold medal that the open water community knew she deserved.

On land, Possenti said, Ana Marcela is generous and humble to a fault. In Canada, he said, she once stopped a bus full of athletes to get off and help an old lady cross the street. In Portugal, after swimmers took 50 suits from a vendor, incorrectly assuming they were free, Cunha knocked on every athlete’s door at the hotel and returned 47 of them to the distraught seller. In Japan, noticing that post-race revellers left garbage strewn all over the pristine streets, she stayed to place every bottle and piece of paper in the trash.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

When did you meet Ana Marcela and what were your first impressions?

I met her in 2012. She was shy. I was training her close friend, and one day they arrived together – and wow. She was already a world champion in 25K. She was already fifth in the Olympics. She said, ‘I want to reinvent myself.’ It was really-really cool because she was open to change her technique, strategy, everything. It's an athlete behaviour that coaches always look for. In 2013, I had the opportunity to really know her as a person. She’s amazing, one of my best friends. I spend more time with her than with my family, my girlfriend or my kids. We have the same values. We think the same things. When we look at each other, we understand exactly what the other one wants to say.

You don’t speak on race day?

No. I just say, ‘Do you have any doubts?’ One hundred percent of the time, she says, ‘No doubts.’ But the day before a race, we spend like an hour discussing strategy, opponents, if this happens, how do you react? If that happens, how do you react? Today [on the eve of the world championship 5K], we spent 12 minutes because we say: I know what you're thinking. We don't need an hour.

In addition to 12 FINA World Championship medals and Olympic gold, FINA named her the best female marathon swimmer in the world seven times in the last 10 years. How has she stayed at the top of her game for so long?

Two parts. One, I change my program every single year. People ask: Why do you change, change, change? I hear so many managers say, ‘The team is winning so don’t change anything; if we do the same thing, we will get the same result.’ That's a REAL big mistake. We don’t believe in that. I want to test things every single year, and give her the impression that we keep improving. For sure, we're not going to do the same altitude camp or the exact same competitions next year. The second part is her hunger for big goals. In 2013, I said, ‘If we're going to work together again, I want three medals at the worlds.’ And she loved it. She loves high goals, always.

What's left to aim for?

She already has the most medals in the World Cups, five times overall FINA World Cup champion, blah, blah, blah. But did you win the 10K at words? No. [That race is Wednesday.] After Tokyo, I asked her, ‘What do you want from the next cycle? To continue? To stop as Olympic champion? She said, ‘In open water, no one ever won two gold medals in two Olympic Games so why not?’ I said, ‘OK. Let's go to the pool. Let’s start again.’

Is it true that she never races the same way twice?

Yes. I study the other athletes. I know what they like, how they swim, their times in the pool, which arm is stronger so I know how to push them to do what we want them to do. I also know how the coaches think. [At the same time, it’s important that Ana Marcela doesn’t become predictable] so she swims always different. We are swimming now with different techniques than last year. 

What types of things do you change? What can you play with?

Frequency of strokes. It's not only the speed that you achieve, it's how much energy you put in to achieve that speed. In A-2 zone (aerobic-2), you are in a speed comfortable to be in the first pack. Last year, we do that with less strokes. This year, more strokes. People say to me: she's doing more strokes so she's gonna be tired earlier or she's expending more energy. And that's not true. You can achieve the same speed without working your muscles as much.

What is her best attribute as an athlete?

Her powerful mind, for sure. Her mind is an unbelievable weapon. To compete 25K at 30 years old? [If she wins her fourth consecutive 25k world title here], she wins that race mentally because we are not training for it. We train for the 10K because it's the Olympic distance. Since she’s been training with me, she wins 25 just with the head, the mindset. It's crazy.

Not only does she race a lot, but her travel schedule is nuts. She’ll win a race, hop continents, and compete a day or two later.  When was the most tired you have ever seen her?

Physically, was after the Capri to Napoli 36k race. But emotionally, now, after Olympics. I think we'll do this cycle easier. We're not going to compete in every single race. Already, we’re two months away from home. I'm really tired. I miss my kids. She misses her girlfriend. It's insane. Why we are doing that?

Do you think Ana Marcela would make a good coach?

If she wants to, she can. She's already graduated from physical education university in Brazil. I think she would be an amazing coach. She asks me every single thing: Why I'm doing this? Why this set? Which aerobic zone is it good for? What do you intend with that? I want to give my chronos to Ana after Paris and say, ‘Your turn.’  Then I’ll be like, I don't know, a manager or work in the federation from Monday to Friday and stay with my daughters. They really need me. They'll be teenagers.