\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Argentine swimmer Agostina Hein made history on Sunday. The 17-year-old claimed her ninth gold medal at the South American Youth Olympic Games, bringing her total to 10 across the competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the process, Hein broke two South American records \u2014 800-meter freestyle with a time of 8:22.01 and 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:10.82 \u2014\u00a0 and three Argentine records.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her nine gold medals also made her the most successful athlete in the competition\u2019s history, breaking the record previously held by Brazil\u2019s Stephanie Balduccini, who had won eight at Rosario 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I\u2019m thrilled. It was like a Dream Games; I couldn\u2019t have asked for a better outcome,\u201d Hein said in an interview with the National Undersecretariat of Sports, adding that beating the record of someone she admires like Balduccini meant a lot to her.<\/p>\n
Hein admitted she\u2019s \u201calready thinking about Los Angeles 2028,\u201d with times that should allow her to qualify on her first attempt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to keep growing and building on my progress. Right now I\u2019m competing in a lot of events, and it\u2019s not easy to keep up the pace, but I have to enjoy it, give it my all\u2014that\u2019s how the times come,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Who is Agostina Hein? Hein was born on April 24, 2008, in the city of Campana, Buenos Aires Province, and started swimming at age 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She participated in her first swimming competition at 7, where she met her current coach, Sebasti\u00e1n Montero.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe always had great height and poise, but above all, she had a real feel for the water,\u201d Montero told sports outlet Ol\u00e9 in 2025. \u201cYou could tell she did everything very naturally. That\u2019s not something you develop over time\u2014it\u2019s something you\u2019re born with.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2023, at 15, Hein won the bronze medal at the World Junior Swimming Championships held in Israel, becoming the second Argentine swimmer to reach the podium since Delfina Pignatiello in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The result qualified her for the 2024 World Championships in Doha, where, at age 16, she finished fifth in the 800-meter freestyle and eighth in the 400-meter freestyle. Months later, she became the youngest member of the Argentine delegation at the 2024 Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n
In August 2025, she made history in swimming in Argentina: she was crowned champion in the 400-meter medley at the World Junior Championships in Otopeni, Romania.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She did so with a time of 4:34.34, breaking the Argentine and South American record, set by Georgina Bardach (4:37.51) at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where she won the bronze medal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Argentine swimmer Agostina Hein made history on Sunday. The 17-year-old claimed her ninth gold medal at the South American Youth Olympic Games, bringing her total to 10 across the competition.\u00a0 In the process, Hein broke two South American records \u2014 800-meter freestyle with a time of 8:22.01 and 200-meter individual medley with a time of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":54856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14351,14352,67,14353],"tags":[14348,14349,1369,14350],"class_list":["post-54855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agostina-hein","category-la28","category-sports","category-swimming","tag-agostina-hein","tag-la28","tag-sports","tag-swimming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}