Adam Gordon

Born on the Isla de Taboga on June 21, 1906, this Panamanian stood out for being a swimmer, as well as the first and only representative of Panama in the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928 and later He was one of the initiators of aquatic rescue in this country.

At the same time that he worked as a mechanic, he practiced swimming all the time on the beaches of his native island. Gordón, whose life was linked to swimming, was one of the many swimmers who participated in the competitions that took place on the beaches of Bella Vista and the famous San José Ferris wheel, in the San Felipe neighborhood.

In the 1920s, after the creation of the Sports Federation of Panama, invitations to participate in the 1928 event were received. Adán Gordón, then an important sports activist, decided to pay for his participation in the 1928 event in Amsterdam, where he had the opportunity to measure himself against great figures of the time, such as the well-known Johnny Weissmüller. History records that these Olympics were attended by 46 countries and 3,14 athletes and the first presence of Panama fell to this immortal athlete.

After his participation in the Amsterdam Olympics, Adán Gordón attended the Second Central American Sports Games in Havana, Cuba in 1930, where he closed his cycle as an athlete to become a coach. On the occasion of the third edition of these regional games held in Panama in 1938, he served as delegate and assistant coach of the American instructor James Triolo, who was in charge of preparing the Panamanian team.

After the 1938 games, he assumed the administration of the Olympic Pool built for those games, a position he held for three decades, combining it with his swimming teachings to several generations of swimmers. It would be necessary to wait until the creation of the Olympic Committee of Panama in 1947 for Panama to return to participate in the Olympic Games.

It was in the early 1940s when Adán Gordón and Pedro Almillátegui started a lifeguard team in Panama City. They began empirically teaching the youth of Club Deportivo Santo Domingo. These were the first steps that would lead the Panamanian Red Cross to include water rescue as one of its relief techniques.

Before participating in the Olympics, he was known as The Human Fish due to his speed and skill in moving through the water, a nickname that was changed to the lone Olympian after your participation.

After his death on March 8, 1966, the Olympic Pool in Panama City was named after him.