From Siberia to Antarctica: the Chilean swimmer who breaks crystal seas

They call her the

and although the icy water swimmer Bárbara Hernández (Santiago de Chile, 37 years old) has already taken a liking to it, she would have preferred something like Tonina -the world's largest dolphin-.

“Why can they be sharks and I am a mermaid?” She asks this Saturday after a morning training in the pools of one of her sponsors, the Club Deportivo Universidad Católica, located in the eastern sector of Santiago.

It was difficult to arrange the meeting.

So far this year, the athlete has hardly set foot on the Chilean mainland.

She kicked off 2023 by competing in the Icy Water World Cup in France, where she won seven medals.

She then embarked on a voyage to Antarctica, where she became the first person to swim 2.5 kilometers, and this Sunday she flies to New Zealand to cross the Cook Strait, a course of about 27 kilometers.

To achieve it,

Bárbara Hernández trains in the pool of the Universidad Católica Sports Club. Cristian Soto Quiroz

For two hours, Hernandez swims at an exact pace from one end of the pool to the other.

Gabriel Torres, his coach since he was nine years old, yells at him every time he completes a kilometer lap.

The 77-year-old man clarifies that it is a gentle practice for him to recover from the 20 days of travel in the extreme south.

In general, it is usually four hours from Monday to Saturday.

“After the Antarctic [region], this looks like Cancun to me,” jokes Bárbara as she leans her head towards the sun to shake off the aftertaste of a cold that still seems to seep into her bones.

On February 6, she swam in a bathing suit for 45 minutes and 30 seconds in Antarctic waters, at 2 degrees, to urge the conservation of the ecosystem in the extreme south of the planet.

Upon completing the feat, Barbara's body temperature was 27 degrees.

“Hypothermia was severe, she was no longer shivering.

When I got out of the water I was half gone.

It was super rough for my team, but I was happy, my job was done and I knew they were going to take care of me, ”she says, still excited.

The 60 sailors from the Chilean Navy tug Janequeo (ATF-65) received her with the song

from the Rocky movie, and specialized hypothermia toilets provided the necessary assistance.

“It was a very controlled recovery.

I don't have bad memories, ”she points out.

This morning she received confirmation of her Guinness record for her feat.

The athlete grew up in a simple home, in the municipality of Recoleta, where going for a walk to the sea was something exceptional.

"For me, swimming was a privilege and I think that's why I love it so much," she says.

Her first memories of her are playing in the waves with her father on cold, gray beaches.

"Nobody likes them, but I remember them with a lot of love because I came out of the water and my mom was waiting for me with hot chocolate."

Her immediate fascination with her water made her parents, with a lot of effort, pay for swimming lessons at the University of Chile.

Gabriel remembers that she wasn't the best of hers, but that her persistence made her stand out from the rest.

"Swimming is 80% mental and 20% physical," she says at the edge of the pool.

Bárbara Hernández with her coach Gabriel Torres Galaz. Cristian Soto Quiroz

At the age of 17, Bárbara competed for the first time in open water in the Corral-Niebla section, in the southern city of Valdivia, and became the first woman to win.

"After having had a crying adolescence because she competed in the pool and I was doing badly and I was not a champion despite everything I trained, I found something that I was good at," she recounts.

This competition allowed something that the athlete wanted and that she could not find in other places: swimming with a swimsuit and not with a neoprene one, mandatory in other tournaments for safety reasons.

“It is my way of connecting with nature.

I'm kind of a purist, but the human is the one that has to adapt.

Do not intervene as much as we can so as not to feel cold, pain, or fear.

The ultimate goal is to give a place to all those states and see that they are not greater than my fire, which is my heart, or the love of the people I am close to”, explains the athlete and psychologist by profession.

In 2014 she was invited to swim in the Perito Moreno glacier, in Argentine Patagonia, at five degrees and without neoprene.

She only told her inner circle that she was going to venture into the frigid waters.

"I didn't want them to tell me that she wasn't going to make it, something very Chilean," she says.

“I was scared, I was super nervous, I had never seen so much snow in my life, I had never seen a glacier, I didn't even know it was possible to swim there…”, she says.

Again, she won.

She has since become number one in the icy water ranking twice.

And she has traveled the world breaking records.

She was the first Chilean to swim the English Channel, a feat that took her more than 12 hours.

He obtained 10 medals -three gold- in the 2019 Cold Water Swimming World Championships in Siberia and the following year he became the first person to cross Chungará Lake, located 4,560 meters above sea level, in the north of Chile.

In 2021, she became the first Latin American woman to swim two laps around Manhattan Island, completing 94 kilometers in 20 hours and 30 minutes.

The range of achievements of her is wider every year.

Where does he get the strength?

“I swim with my emotions”, she replies, “that's why when a big swim ends you feel like you've lost something, a part of you stays in that place and you have to have a mini duel”, she adds.

Bárbara Hernández during an interview with EL PAÍS.

Cristian Soto Quiroz

Until two years ago, he organized raffles to raise money that would allow him to attend the big events where registration alone can cost $6,000.

Freehand, she works to receive sponsorships.

The main ones come from the Chilean magnate Andrónico Luksic Foundation, the Bank of Chile and the Ministry of Sport.

But raising funds to compete in a non-traditional sport is not easy, which is why the swimmer's favorite moment is when she is in the water: “That's when I can put my all into it, focus on my stroke, how I breathe, where to go. I go, where to get strength, what do I do with fear, that is mine”.

Until March 4, Barbara will be in New Zealand to try to cross the Cook Channel.

What does she think about during 15 hours of swimming?

“Just as the price of a swim is paid beforehand, your thoughts are trained for such a marathon.

You have to work on the internal dialogue beforehand.

Obviously it scares me because it matters to me and it matters to me because I've been waiting for this opportunity for five years, but if it doesn't come, nothing happens.

I'll cry for a while and come back in 10 years."

Whatever happens, in July she will try her luck on the Tsugaru, Japan and

will continue advancing to add a new achievement: being the first South American to complete the route called Seven Oceans, which includes the channels of Moloka'i (Hawaii), Catalina (California), La Mancha (England and France), North (Scotland ), Tsugaru and the Straits of Gibraltar (Spain and Morocco) and Cook.

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