An Interview with Carlos Costa, Marathon Swimmer

By Lisa Bendall

On July 23, 1993, 20-year-old Carlos Costa completed a 51.4-km swim across Lake Ontario. A bilateral amputee, Costa became the youngest person and first athlete with a disability to finish the marathon swim. Lisa Bendall recently met with Costa and his coach, Vicki Keith, who herself has crossed the lake five times.

LB: How long have you been swimming as a competitive sport?

CC: I’ve been swimming on and off ever since I was young. I joined a swim team when I was in elementary school. Once I got to high school, I decided that I wanted to stop because of studies -- I thought it would be really difficult to manage. But in Grade 12, I discovered the Variety Village pool [an athletics facility in Toronto], and I decided to give it a shot and swim there. I’ve been swimming ever since. Then the swim team was created, which I swim on, and then the marathon swimming started taking place, and everything’s just picked up from there.

LB: What made you decide to swim across Lake Ontario?

CC: I was at an awards banquet one night, and Vicki was there. She was already involved with Variety Village, and so was I, and I used to see her around a few times. I’d always say, "Wow! Vicki Keith!" At that awards banquet, a guy came up to me and said: "I want to swim across Lake Ontario." And I said, "Oh, really?" I thought it was a joke. I just looked at him. But the more I thought about it, the more I accepted the idea and then became intrigued by it. We went up to Vicki and asked, and before I knew it, we had set up a meeting. In that meeting we basically talked about the kind of training involved.

When I first looked at the training, I thought, Wow! This is a lot! But I didn’t say that I couldn’t do it -- I just said there was a lot of training. And I guess that’s the key. You never say that you can’t do something. It’s fine to say it’s a lot, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. It just means you have to work a little harder.

I think the other person was more involved in just the idea. He had a family, and he never really followed up, so it was just kind of lost from there.

LB: Can you tell me about the first two attempts, which I understand were cut short?

CC: The first one, I got in about 9:30 in the morning and the weather conditions were just perfect. We were looking to have a really good swim. But, unfortunately, some thunderstorms came by and we were literally forced out. There was no way we could stay in. It’s too bad that I had to get out, when I think about it, because no one could ask for better conditions than what we had that day -- besides the thunderstorms. If it could have been maybe 10 hours later, it would have been just fine with me, but it just happened at that time. I got a little upset, not that I couldn’t do it, but because of the weather conditions.

So we set another date, about a month later. Again, the weather conditions were pretty good, but as I started going into the swim more and more, the water temperature kept on dropping and dropping. Before I knew it, it was 10 degrees. It was really cold -- I was shivering, my lips were blue, my movements were all over the place; they weren’t really controlled. We took a temperature reading. We had decided earlier that any reading of that kind of temperature is not safe to swim in, so we decided to pull out. That, again, was an environmental factor. If it was even a couple of degrees warmer, it would have been tolerable. But two degrees is a big deal in the water. That could be the difference between death and survival. In the lake, because all you’re wearing is a Speed-o, bathing cap and goggles. Any kind of fluctuation is a big deal.

LB: You trained for an 18-hour swim. It ended up, because of waves and winds, in fact becoming a 32 1/2-hour swim. How did you manage to keep yourself going?

VK: He trained to cross the lake. He focused on 18 hours, but he trained to cross the lake.

CC: We were planning for a shorter swim, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a 32-hour swim. Again, I can’t dictate how the weather’s going to treat me in the lake. I was just thankful I was able to swim without being pulled out -- without cold water temperatures and thunderstorms.

The conditions took us off course for a while. You have to think: "This is my chance. If I mess up now, it’ll be my fault, not the weather’s fault." I couldn’t accept that. Vicki was very instrumental in this -- during the feedings she said, "You know, it might take a little bit longer than you thought, but at least you know you’re going to make it." And that’s the key. It doesn’t matter whether it takes 10 hours or 40 hours. The point is that you’re going to touch shore. That’s what we focused on, just to make it to the other side. Five years from now, no one will even care how long it took to cross. You know, one day, if there’s flat water, maybe I can do it in 18 hours. But those were the conditions given to me on that day. They were predicting that the winds would diminish. But they didn’t tell me when they’d diminish. At the end of the swim --that’s when they were gone! So you can’t really control that. Swimmers are going to be blown off-course, the boats are going to be off-course, and that’s what swimming across a lake is all about. You have to take what’s given to you.

LB: What did you find to be the hardest parts of the swim?

CC: I didn’t really know how to deal with the temperatures at night. The water did get colder, and it got darker and it was harder to see. I can remember Vicki’s brother, Donald, telling me, "Go that way." Well, I couldn’t see where "that way" was! For a minute I was swimming in the wrong direction! I couldn’t find the paddleboard, where the lifeguard was. So I was swimming in every direction trying to find the glowstick. Then finally I saw the lifeguard and thought, Oh good, now I’m back on track. Trying to get used to the night -- it’s totally different from the day swimming. You can see hardly anything. I could only barely see the CN Tower: All I could see were two or three white lights, and that’s what we were aiming for.

LB: Did you ever consider stopping at all?

CC: No. As soon as you think that, you’re gone. You’ve got to keep on going. You’ve got to keep your mental attitude positive all the way across the swim. Otherwise, if you think even a little negatively, you’re just toasted. Once the water temperatures get colder, you have to have a really strong attitude to carry on. Believe it or not, you have to ignore the cold water. And that’s very hard to do with a negative attitude -- with every stroke, you’re probably thinking, Damn, this is cold water! You’re not supposed to do that! You’re supposed to be thinking, Don’t worry, it’ll only be a few more hours. All I kept thinking in the cold water was: in a few more hours I’ll have a towel wrapped around me, and I’ll be just fine -- and that’s what happened. You’re thinking, I’m going to be here forever. But the truth is, you’re not. The thing is, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like you’re going to be in there forever. And once you touch shore, you don’t even have to go in again if you don’t want to.

LB: Do you want to?

CC: Not right now!

LB: Can you tell me about the publicity that has arisen as a result ofthis, and its benefits?

CC: My main goal is to benefit Variety Village. One, I’d like to raise awareness for people with disabilities; and, two, I’d like to raise awareness for Variety Village. I think we’ve done a very good job with that. A lot of people have been calling. I’ve even had a couple of people ask about volunteering, saying, "Where can I help out?" Hardly anybody from the public had seen Variety Village before it was on TV. So it promotes what the place is all about. People are more willing to do things like donate, and maybe go as far as volunteering and visiting, anything like that. It benefits everybody here as a whole, which is what we were after. There has been pretty close to $45,000 in donations.

LB: Do you see any other benefits to people with disabilities arising out of the swim?

CC: Generally, yes. I see that, in society, any big event like this helps society’s view of people with disabilities. They look at us in a more positive manner, instead of saying, "You can’t do anything" -- that kind of attitude. They might look upon a person with a disability and say, "Well, hey, maybe they can do it. They might have to work a little harder, but maybe they can do it." That’s the whole point: They can do things. It might take a little longer or it might take a little more work, but the point is that the job can get done.

LB: Do you see yourself as a role model for young athletes with disabilities?

CC: I see myself as a role model, whether it be for people with disabilities or not.

VK: There are a lot of kids on the swim team, able-bodied and disabled, who look up to Carlos and consider him a role model and a hero. It’s kids of all sorts who respect him.

LB: I understand that the Ability Online computer network [see article in this issue] has recently adopted you as a role model for one of their conferences?

I’ve been a moderator of that conference for about a year. I hadn’t been able to log on since my swim because I was all tired out -- a lot of interviews and stuff. But I am a regular user of Ability Online. I logged on last night. Everybody was wondering when I was going to get back. They were saying, "It’s been a week and a half. Aren’t you recuperated yet?" So I logged on and I left a very long message to everybody, in every conference that I’m involved in, including the one that I moderate. The demand there is very high. I’ve gotten over 200 messages. They’re really long messages, and they’re really hard to answer. A lot of them are congratulations, but...can you imagine? It’s like trying to answer 200 letters! That’ll take me days to go through. Before last weekend, I couldn’t even answer one letter because I was really tired.

LB: Vicki, why did you decide to become Carlos’s coach? What made you say yes?

VK: I didn’t decide, per se, to become his coach. We were a team right from the very beginning. He came up to me; he was asking me intelligent questions in a very positive way. I knew that he had the attitude and the strength of mind to accomplish something like that. And when he kept on coming back, I thought, This is someone who I can support, who I can help out. It’s always been obvious to me that there are two ways you can respond to somebody who has a dream. You can say, "Forget it, you’re never going to be able to do it," and you’re not doing either of you any good. Or you can say, "I really believe that you can do it." And I really believed that Carlos could accomplish what he wanted to, so I told him that. We started working as a team, and I’d say it worked out pretty good.

LB: How did you feel when Carlos finished the swim, when he touched shore?

VK: Indescribable...indescribable! There was the thrill of knowing he had accomplished it. But also it was like looking into my own face, because I knew exactly what he was feeling. I knew that he was thrilled to be there, but I also knew that he wasn’t really able to understand what he had just done. There’s such a fog, that you really don’t understand everything that’s going on, you just appreciate it. You’ve been awake for a day and a half, and physically exerting yourself for that period of time. It’s tough.

(If you would like more information about Variety Village -- or to make a donation to Carlos’ swim -- call (416) 699-7167, or write to: 3701 Danforth Ave., Scarborough, ON, M1N 2G2.)