David Meca

David Meca is a Spanish long distance swimmer. He has been FINA World Champion at the Honolulu Open Water Swimming Championships (2000) and Montreal (2005) as well as World Cup Circuit Absolute Champion in 1998, having won 28 World Cup Marathon events. Moreover, he has won nine medals in official World and European Championships.

He was suspended for four years for doping in January 1999, when he tested positive for nandrolone after the long-distance World Cup in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil).

It was without doubt the most transcendental fact of his existence. The entire episode of false doping caused him the necessity to demonstrate not only his innocence, but also to be a special athlete and achieve the greatest successes in his field. It was then that he came up with the challenges, which shows that the crises and the worse episodes of your life are also the moments that bring you new opportunities.

If the doping episode had not happened, he would probably never have considered doing different things, such as swimming for more than 100 kilometers between the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, or breaking the record of crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, or swimming from the Peninsula to the Balearic Islands.

Referencias: 

- David Meca, suspendido durante cuatro años por dopaje. (1999). Elmundo.es. Retrieved 16 May 2017, from http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/1999/agosto/08/deportes/dopaje.html

- Hernando, J. [Josue Hernando]. (2015, August 14). DAVID MECA ESTRECHO [Archivo de vídeo]. Recuperado de https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g44UVijepLM&t=89s