At the age of 19, Aukan Goldin is already used to people pausing for a moment when they hear his name. After all, how many people in Israel know the region in southern Argentina after which he is named? His father, Eitan, has South American roots and decided that the meaning of the place’s name, “warrior” — in the mental rather than physical sense — would suit his son. He was not wrong.
“I really like it,” Goldin said in an interview just before opening his first senior European Championship on Monday. “There are no other people with a name like mine, I checked. I know it’s a strange name, but I always answer that it is from South America and that it has meaning. When I was the youngest on the national teams, they would call me Baby-kan, which was funny.”
Goldin is no longer a baby, and this week he will jump into the big leagues at the continental championship in Paris. He already competed on this stage in December in short-course pools, but he understands that this time it is the real thing. “I can swim very fast, and this championship will be a very important milestone ahead of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games and for my career as an athlete in general,” he declared.
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