Growing older doesn't mean growing weaker.

I quit at 18. I came back at 47. World champion at 55.

A college coach looked at my times, shook my hand, and told me I wasn't fast enough. I believed him for 30 years. I built a career, raised a family, and ran a pub in the center of Prague.

Then at 47, over lunch, a friend mentioned he'd just swum at the European Masters Championships. I didn't know adults still raced. I got back in the water that winter. At 50, two friends talked me into a frozen lake — 8 degrees Celsius. Everything I'd learned in my first 50 years said: if the water is that cold, you don't go in. I went in anyway.