A record 225 years in the making!

Trevor Wainstein might be leaving Sao Paulo with six medals around his neck, but even he is the first to laugh at the level of competition at masters swimming level.

Rather, Trevor leaves with even more friendships than medals – and a new world Maccabi record with a story well worth telling.

On the second day of competition, Trevor combined with three swimmers from Venezuela, Mexico and Uruguay to form a relay team.

In masters swimming, the ages of the competitors are combined to come up with an age category. Although no medal was awarded for the team’s performance in their freestyle relay event, they can now boast a world Maccabi record – in the over-225 year-old swimming age group!

Jacobo Raijman, from Mexico, is at the Pan America Games after recovering from recent brain surgery – he wasn’t allowed to dive in at this event and hard to start from the water, but that didn’t stop him!

The Venezuelan swimmer showed you’re never too old to compete, diving into the competition at 75-years of age.

Trevor has overcome adversity to get to this point as well, now swimming and fit again after recovering from cancer last year.

Let’s just say that the Uruguayan member, in his mid-40s, brought the average age of the team down!

“The situation is in the masters swimming, where it’s not that competitive, we’re meeting people from all over the world,” Trevor reflected afterwards.

“We’re making friendships. I’ve got guys here that I swam with in Israel, and I’m catching up with them.

“We’re also swapping clothes; I’ve got no Australia gear left! My Aussie hats with corks dangling from them, were a hit!

“It was a very enjoyable meet!”

And the relay, let’s say, is what a lot of people say Maccabi sport is all about.