"So Slosberg was in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. earlier this month as town officials planted a plaque at Las Olas Beach to honor Nyad, a local kid who grew up to be as famous as any female American swimmer of the pre-Ledecky era. Slosberg says he hadn't flown in 10 years, but when he heard that the woman who Slosberg calls "swimming's greatest fraud," was going to be commemorated by public servants, he had to get on a plane."
"Diana Nyad's crazy dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida began as a little girl, standing on the shores of Fort Lauderdale Beach. Thousands of Cuban refugees had just arrived in South Florida after the revolution. Fascinated, Nyad peered into the horizon. "Mom, everyone says Cuba is so close, but I can't see it," Nyad told her mother. "Where is it?""
"What a tale! All hogwash, Slosberg says. "Not a word of that is true," Slosberg said in a write-up of the plaque planting ceremony that ran in Swimming World magazine. "Nyad began swimming competitively at 12 and won her first championship at 14. But the story had to align with the end of the Cuban Revolution, so she made herself nine.""
Daniel Slosberg traveled to Fort Lauderdale to protest a plaque honoring Diana Nyad at Las Olas Beach. The plaque recounts a childhood anecdote about Nyad imagining a Cuba-to-Florida swim after watching refugees arrive. Nyad completed a reported Cuba-to-Florida swim in 2013 at age 64 and inspired an Oscar-nominated film. Slosberg calls Nyad "swimming's greatest fraud" and says the childhood story is fabricated. Slosberg asserts Nyad began competitive swimming at 12 and won her first championship at 14, claiming she later reduced her age to fit the Cuban Revolution timeline.
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