The 37-year-old Chilean has competed at every World Aquatics Championships since 2003, finishing 10th in the 1500m heat on Monday morning in Fukuoka
Chile’s Kristel Kobrich broke the record for most appearances by a swimmer at the World Aquatics Championships when she made her 11th straight appearance at the meet on Monday in Fukuoka, Japan.
“I’m so lucky. I still do what I love,” Kobrich said after her 1500m freestyle heat in which she finished 10th overall at 16:11.25. “I know it’s hard to be elite for 20 years. I just got 10th place and I just can’t believe it. I am very happy and very proud.”
Kobrich broke her own longevity record she set last year as she is the only swimmer to have competed in more than nine World Championships.
“It means everything to be here. All the work I do every day with my team so I can still be with the best every day, and every championships. I am very proud. Of course I would love to be a little bit faster but it is what it is and I am still very happy.”
Kobrich made her first World Championships in 2003 when she was 17 and hasn’t missed an elite competition since. She has been at every major World Championships and every Olympics in the two decades since her debut, something she takes tremendous pride in.
Kobrich has raced the 1500m freestyle at every World Championships since 2005, finishing as high as fourth in 2009 and 2011. In 2013 in Barcelona, the same city she made her Worlds debut in in 2003, she scored her lifetime best in the heats at 15:54.30.
“Every day I work for a what and for a why. I am still on the top of the elite swimmers so it means everything. I’m not a swimmer that has ups and downs…or has one year of vacation. I am a world class athlete.”
Kobrich has lived and trained in Argentina for the last two decades with coach Daniel Garimaldi. She has made seven World Championship finals in the 1500m freestyle, most recently finishing eighth last year in Budapest.
“It’s incredible,” American Katie Ledecky said last year of Kobrich’s longevity after the 1500m freestyle final in Budapest. “I’m not going to be doing this when I’m 36. I told her after the race it was incredible. To make a final at Worlds at that age is incredible and it gives all of us a little perspective that distance swimmers can go long and have really stellar careers.”
In addition to 11 World Championships, Kobrich has competed in five Olympic and Pan American Games. Later this year, she will be one of the athlete ambassadors for the Pan American Games in her home city of Santiago, Chile which is hosting the event for the first time.
“It will mean a lot for all the people who live in Chile to be with us and cheer with us, and be aware (of) what it means to be an athlete.”
Also this year in Fukuoka, Hungary’s Zsuzsanna Jakabos and Brazil’s Ana Marcela Cunha are competing in their ninth World Championships, while Japan’s Ryosuke Irie and Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom are swimming in their eighth. South Africa’s Roland Schoeman is also competing this week as the only swimmer here to have raced at the 2001 Worlds in Fukuoka.