In 104 years, only 38 people have managed to unite Argentina and Uruguay by swimming across the River “Rio de La Plata” , and Lucas Rivet (@lucasrivet) is one of them. In 2018, the swimmer, who was born in San Isidro, took on one of the country's most important sporting challenges and created the documentary “Cruce de la Plata” to reconstruct the story of all those who have attempted a similar feat.

His relationship with water was born in his childhood, during swimming lessons at school. His teachers noticed his innate talent for swimming and invited him to train at the pools of the Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires. His mother, a lifelong swimmer, accepted with enthusiasm and pride. His father, a rugby player, also agreed. But he refused to take him to training.

So mother and son walked the 60 kilometers from the north of Buenos Aires to the City of Fury three times a week. The two-hour sessions and three-hour journeys lasted just three months before little Lucas couldn't take it anymore and asked his father to return to rugby.

"If my dad had supported the part of the trip that took us there and back, I might have become a swimmer sooner. He didn't want me to play rugby, he wanted me to play a team sport and that definitely shaped me as a person", Lucas Rivet told Infocielo.

Little did he know that his cap and goggles would be gathering dust for more than 20 years. In the meantime, he continued his sporting career, playing rugby and amateur football. As the years went by, Lucas, like his teammates, got older and busier, and it became increasingly difficult for him to play sports with others.

One day, he decided to go to a local swimming pool and take up his first love. However, his return to swimming would not be easy, especially when his new coach told him that he would not have the chance to compete again.

"For him, swimming meant an extra plate of food a day. He swam not because he loved swimming, but because it was a way to make ends meet. So his message about the sport was not entirely positive," he said.

Despite this, Lucas continued to follow him until one day he saw two boys in wetsuits swimming in the outdoor pool with a coach. He approached them and asked what they were doing, and they told him they were preparing for a triathlon. "I want to do that," Lucas said enthusiastically. "Well, let's get in the water and train," they replied.

And so it was that he spent four years doing triathlons, competing in various high-profile events such as the Ironman, one of the discipline's premier competitions. "When I was doing my fourth Ironman, I realized I was focusing more on the clock than the experience. That's when I said, 'I've got to get out of here because it's eating me up,'" he confessed.

Lucas could not imagine a life without challenges and knew he had to find a new one. The new adventure came when he spoke to a lifeguard, Roberto Arena, who told him that he and his father had swum across the Rio de la Plata. Intrigued, Lucas returned home and googled it. The search engine turned up very little information about the crossing. So he decided to address this lack of documentation: he set out to tell the story and cross the widest river in the world.

The Río de La Plata Crossing is a challenge that is more than 100 years old and consists of linking Colonia del Sacramento, in Uruguay, with Punta Lara, in the province of Ensenada. The two coasts are 50 kilometers apart. The first daredevils were Enrique Tiraboschi, Luis Garramendy, Elio Pérez, Romero Maziel and Vito Dumas, who attempted the crossing in 1919. Although they were expert swimmers, they did not succeed.

It was not until 1923 that Lilian Gemma Harrison, a swimmer from Quilmes, defied the patriarchal dictates of the time and, at the age of 20, became the first woman to cross the Rio de la Plata. Over the years, many have tried, but only 38 people have managed to cross the immensity of the River Plate.

Lucas had to train for three long years to become part of the national sport's glorious history. "I strengthened my spirit to know that I could do it. Some people don't need that kind of time. But I had to work on my confidence," he said.

During these years, he changed coaches, built his team and planned the best strategy for such an adventure. After much preparation, Lucas made his first attempt at the crossing in March 2018, starting from the coast of Cologne. Together with a team of 15 people he led, he swam for more than 12 hours in the silver-brown waters. But on that day, fate did not want him to reach his destination. Just eight kilometers from Punta Lara, poor visibility forced him to abandon the attempt. He climbed into the boat, embraced his companions and wept inconsolably. Frustration and fear had gripped him.

Although he had not made it, Lucas did not hesitate to try again. But first he made some decisions: he stopped leading his team, changed coaches, reduced his training time and started working with a sports psychologist.

Nine months later, on Christmas Eve 2018, he jumped back into the Rio de La Plata. 56 strokes a minute, his team cheering him on, and step by step the water became so heavy it felt like mud. He couldn't take it anymore. He was vomiting and cramping. Only two hours to go and he felt like he was going to pass out. Pure fear. "My problem wasn't that I was going to die because I was going to faint, my problem was that if I did faint and didn't make it, I would have to retrain everything I had trained to try again," he recalled.

"That's it!" his teammates shouted at him. With what little strength he had left, he saw his family and friends a few meters away. He put his foot down and there was nothing more he could do. After 14 hours, 10 minutes and 42 kilometers, 41-year-old Lucas Rivet crossed the Rio de La Plata and entered the annals of Argentine sporting history.

But this was not just about his personal achievement. It was about telling a collective story lost in time. As he prepared for his crossing, Lucas worked side-by-side with documentary filmmaker Pablo Pérez to create an audiovisual record of all the Río de La Plata crossers. Together they created 'Cruce del Plata. History of a Challenge', a documentary that recovers part of the history of the national sport and shows the experiences of people who dare to challenge the forces of nature. The documentary premiered on DeporTV and is available on YouTube.

As well as creating this work, the San Isidro swimmer also founded the “Cruce a Nado del Rio de la Plata” association, whose aim is to keep a historical record of all the crossings that have taken place over the last 104 years and to accompany future challengers.

In line with this, Rivet believes that the crossing of the Rio de la Plata should not only focus on the sporting and personal challenges of each swimmer. Rather, it should be an opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of caring for the river and other water sources.

"Not only is it necessary as a human challenge, from a physical point of view, but I believe that the more people who dive into the Rio de la Plata to try to cross it, the more people will understand its status as a freshwater basin that we are polluting. For me it is important to be in contact with the water. Everything I have experienced in the last eight years has made me find a purpose, which is to promote all kinds of activities that connect people with water and the environment. Before, water had no value for me, whereas now I realise that we have to take care of it," he concluded.

After giving up swimming for 20 years, he swam across the Rio de La Plata to inspire others to protect its waters | Infocielo