Horacio Iglesias

After retiring from competition, Iglesias graduated from university in 1969 as an electromechanical engineer. After working for 22 years as an advisor, he started his own company in 1992, Axsys Comunicaciones de Argentina, a fiber-optic installation company. He was married to Albina Valle and had three sons: Luciano, Alvaro and Ramiro.

Iglesias won the 24-hour La Tuque relay swim six times with three different partners, including Egypt’s Abou Heif and Holland’s Judith De Nys. He also won the 34 km (21 mile) Traversée Internationale du Lac St-Jean professional race in Canada in 8 hours and 55 minutes in 1967, in 9 hours and 31 minutes in 1968, in 9 hours and 32 minutes in 1969, in 8 hours and 39 minutes in 1971 with a second place in 1970, and excelled in the warm-water professional swims in South America. He won the 37 km (23 mile) Descente ou remontée du Saguenay in 6 hours and 3 minutes in 1967 and was fifth in 9 hours and 22 minutes in 1968.

In 1965 he decided to quit swimming and concentrate on his university studies, but decided to compete in one more open-water championship, the 38-mile Santa Fe-Coronda Marathon. He finished first, starting a career in which he won the World Professional Marathon title more times than any other competitor.

During the ten years in which he swam (1965–1974) he won 28 out of 44 professional races. He was a six-time winner of the La Tuque 24-hour swim (Quebec) in which a team of two swimmers alternated swimming a circular one-mile course for 24 hours in 22 °C water. Partners included Egypt’s Abou Heif and Holland’s Judith De Nys among others. He was a four-time winner of the 25-mile Lac St Jean (Quebec) in 17 °C water.

In the 1960s and 1970s there were two organizations that controlled marathon swimming, the International Long Distance Swimming Federation (ILDSF) and the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation (WPMSF). The ILDSF was controlled by former Egyptian General Zorkani and declared the World Championship to the swimmer who won the 18-mile Capri – Naples Swim. The WPMSF’s administrative secretary, Joe Grossman, tallied swimmers’ points earned by their placing at various marathon swims during the season. A world champion was declared based upon the total number of points earned. Competitors traveled on this circuit of races and attended swims in North and South America and Europe. Horacio was declared World Professional Marathon Champion a record five times (1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973) and was Vice Champion during the in-between years (1968, 1970).

Horacio Bernardo Guillermo Iglesias (April 29, 1942 – June 25, 2004) was an Argentine swimmer who won five world titles in professional marathon swimming (1967, 1969 and 1971–1973). Between 1965 and 1975 he won 28 professional races throughout South America, the United States, Canada and Italy, and was ranked first or second each year. He was inducted as an honoree in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2003.