Rinaldo Sintjago

Current residence: Little Rock, AR.

Family and Occupation: I’ve been married 3 years and we are expecting our first-born.  I have been working for Snap-on tools as a Sales Developer for the past 2 years in Little Rock and west of Arkansas.

Swimming background:  I learned to swim when I was 2 years old because my dad was a swim coach, but I didn’t really start competitive swimming until I was 9. I swam in Gainesville, Florida while I was in high school with the Gator swim club and Greg Troy then got offered a scholarship to swim for Ouachita Baptist University and Jim Dann’s Tigersharks. After graduating, I quit for 10 years and came back 2 years ago to compete again with masters.

Favorite event/race: My favorite race is the 100 meters freestyle, but when I was younger it was the 50 free and 50 back.

Swimming hero: Didn’t have a particular hero but I had many swimmers I admired. The one I admired the most was a swimmer I practiced with while I was in high school – he was just starting to swim for University of Florida. He was a Brazilian Olympic swimmer, Gabriel Mangabeira, who taught me a lot of discipline and work ethic by giving his very best everyday in practice and always pushing and motivating me to the max.

Swimming goals: I would like to swim masters as long as I can, and make it to the next, or the following, world masters championships and place in the top 3 in the 100 freestyle.

Advice to new masters swimmers: I would tell them that with a group setting, you could push yourself a lot harder and motivate yourself to achieve bigger goals.  Plus it is a lot more fun, because in reality swimming is more of a team sport than people think. Without a team it is a lot harder to develop your full potential and there’s nobody to hold you accountable for anything.  I personally don’t like letting down people who work with me.

Hobbies:I love to travel, so I save money to venture out to different places and try different foods. But if I can’t do that I settle with spending time with family and friends, and playing sports and going shooting! lol.

Favorite drill/workout: I don’t practice many drills, but I like to practice with race mentality, so I love doing timed 50’s and 100’s. Doing 8×100 on 6min intervals or 8×50 on 3 min intervals twice thru.

Do you participate in other sports? Never really officially did any other sports, but I loved playing baseball, basketball, tennis and boxing!

Where do you currently swim? I swim with Dolphin Masters and at the Little Rock Raquet club. I love that 50 meter pool!