In 2017, Luigi Franco realized that he could pursue swimming as something more than just a hobby. At just 13 years old, he earned his first national accolade: bronze medals in the 200-meter backstroke and 1500-meter freestyle at the youth nationals championship in Brazil. Eight years later, as a UC San Diego senior, Franco is still chasing podiums — this time, as an aspiring Olympian.

“I’ve been swimming almost every day for about 13 years now, and it kind of became like the center of my life,” he said.

Born and raised in Brazil, Franco has been a swimmer since he was 9 years old. In 2018, he moved to Florida to train with Rocco Aceto, former swimming coach at Auburn University. In Florida, Franco quickly swam toward success, breaking seven program records at his high school and medaling three times at the state championships. Franco also competed at the national level, winning the B Final 500-yard freestyle in the 2021 Speedo Winter Junior Championships East with a time of 4:25.40. 

Swimming at UCSD, however, brought new challenges for Franco; the athletic competition got tougher, the academic workload multiplied, and the quarter system disorientingly flew by. As a Triton athlete, Franco juggles the demands of being a Division-I athlete and a human biology major with a global health minor.

“I had kind of a tough year my freshman year adjusting into school and the school system,” Franco said. “UCSD is pretty tough with academics, so that made it a bit harder to be ‘all in’ in the pool.” 

To keep his cool and fight off any lingering doubts about his performance, Franco takes things step-by-step, focusing on one day at a time; this helps him stay calm under the pressure of all his ambitions and responsibilities.

“I usually try to think of everyday things that I can do to achieve [my goals],” he said. “Making sure I’m eating healthy, making sure I’m eating the right amount, making sure I’m going to bed early, getting enough sleep, making sure I’m giving my 100% in every training session, I’m doing my stretching, I’m getting my recovery.”

Despite his initial difficulty adjusting to UCSD, his performance in the pool never faltered.

“I have a tattoo that says ‘sic parvis magna’ in Latin, and it translates to ‘greatness from small beginnings,’” he said. “So, I really have it locked in me that if I want to achieve great things, I have to focus on the little details.”

Everything fell into place for him in his junior year. In the second meet of the season — a dual meet against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Oct. 19, 2024 — Franco won the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:44.34. His time was only 0.06 seconds off the UCSD record, set in 2016.

“That was pretty exciting because usually we get fast times in mid-season [in November] or conference [in February], but that meet was early October, so it was pretty cool to get that time there,” he said. 

Franco continued to swim closer and closer to the record over the course of the season. At the Trailblazer Invitational hosted by Utah Tech on Nov. 23, Franco swam a time of 1:44.29 — a mere 0.01 seconds off the record. 

Three months later, on Day 1 of the 2025 Big West Swimming and Diving Championships on Feb. 12, Franco finally beat the school record. In a time trial he swam after having already participated in a relay race, he achieved a time of 1:42.91 — breaking the record by 1.37 seconds.

“Everyone was cheering; it was really fun to have the whole team there,” he said.

Franco currently holds the school record for the long- and short-course 200-yard backstroke with times of 2:01.23 and 1:42.91, respectively. In addition to holding the record for the 100-meter long course backstroke, Franco’s best time for the 100-yard short-course backstroke is 48.17, only milliseconds away from the UCSD record of 47.86. With Franco set to graduate after this Spring Quarter, he’s setting his sights beyond collegiate swimming.

“My end goal is the Olympics 2028,” he said. “That’s what I’m training for.”

By earning third place in the 200-meter long-course backstroke at the Campeonato Brasileiro Absoluto de Natação — the Brazilian Absolute Swimming Championship — in April 2025 with a time of 2:01.23, Franco realized his goal was achievable. As if landing on the podium wasn’t impressive enough, Franco finished 0.8 seconds behind Olympian Nicolas Albiero, who took second, and 0.17 seconds ahead of three-time Olympian Leonardo de Deus, who took fourth.

“It was a fun race; I ended up beating two other Olympians,” Franco said. “It was definitely something that is going to [encourage] me [and] give me more motivation to keep going for 2028 just because now it seems way more feasible to actually represent Brazil in 2028. I’m like 3.7 seconds from the Olympic A cut, and I have three years to work on that. So, three years, one second per year, we’ll see how that goes.”

With a trio of records already under his belt, Franco has his sights on three more: the 100-yard backstroke, the 200-yard freestyle, and the 500-yard freestyle. He is currently 0.31 seconds off the record for the 100-yard backstroke, 3.61 seconds off for the 200-yard freestyle, and 5.94 seconds off for the 500-yard freestyle — all times that he believes he can surpass in his final year at UCSD. 

Franco’s ambitions are high, but that hasn’t stopped him in the past.