Olympic silver medalist Gustavo Borges from Brazil sat down with Brett Hawke on his podcast to talk about his career and how the world of professional swimming has changed since his era in the 1990s. Borges went over the 1995 World Short Course Championships (7:00) that was held in his home country on Copacabana Beach and how important it was for swimming in Brazil.
Gustavo Borges went to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1991 to swim for hall of fame coach Jon Urbanchek (12:30) and talked about his first NCAAs in 1992, when he won the 200 freestyle over Iowa’s Artur Wojdat, and why he ended up deciding to go to Ann Arbor to train under a primarily distance-based coach in Urbanchek.
Borges talked about the stacked recruiting classes (19:00) that came to Michigan after he was there and how that culminated in the 1995 NCAA team title. Tom Dolan, Eric Namesnik and Marcel Wouda were just some of the names that came through to the team as all three of those men went on to win medals at the Olympic Games. He believed that the 1995 Michigan team should be considered among the best NCAA teams of all-time (22:30).
Gustavo Borges talked about the best races of his career (26:00) where he won his first international gold medal at the 1991 Pan American Games, as well as the bronze he won in the 100 free at the 1996 Olympic Games. He never won a gold medal at the Olympics or Worlds, but did not discuss any regret (30:00) in his career because he didn’t want to show any disrespect to his competitors.
Borges’ son Gus followed in his footsteps at the University of Michigan and has become an accomplished sprinter during his time in Ann Arbor, breaking the Michigan school record in the 100 freestyle. He talked about his family values that he instilled in his children by enrolling them in sports and encouraging them to be their best, no matter what that may be.
Gustavo Borges had a huge impact on swimming in Brazil, and was able to celebrate with Cesar Cielo when he became the country’s first gold medalist in the 50 freestyle in 2008 (44:00), who also had a huge impact on swimming in the country. He talked about who the future Cesar Cielo could be in Brazil (48:00), including the core sprint group in Brazil like Bruno Fratus and Marcelo Chierighini.
Borges also shared his workout log book from the 1995-96 season (52:00) leading up to when he won two medals at the Atlanta Games when he was training under Gregg Troy, the current coach of Caeleb Dressel.
Gustavo Borges was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2012. He won four Olympic medals across four trips to the Games, winning a silver in the 100 freestyle at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, as well as a silver in the 200 free and bronze in the 100 at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. Borges also won a bronze in the 4×100 freestyle relay at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.