Raymond Desonay

Raymond Desonay was born in Spa, Belgium into a family with four siblings. He began swimming and diving at a very young age at various pools around his hometown as well as in the outdoors in the nearby Scheldt and Meuse, often practicing outdoors by diving off bridges into the river in front of onlooking spectators. A multiple national champion in high diving, Desonay competed in the men’s plain high diving event at the 1920 Antwerpen Olympics, but did not advance past the preliminary round. Following the Olympics, he continued to practice his craft for many years, and also picked up the ability to snorkel during the interwar period, and later managed and served as a lifeguard at a nearby pool.

Artistically inclined from a young age, Desonay became a noted caricature artist after briefly apprenticing as a baker. Under the pen name “Rigadin”, he was the official carciaturist for the publication Nanesse and the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium and also dabbled in photography. He also lived on a farm where he grew fruits and raised sheep and goats. In 1946, Desonay moved to Roma, Italy with his wife and continued in his profession as an artist there. Desonay continued to swim in his later years, notably swimming across Rome in 1960, a spectacle covered by local press, radio and television. He was seriously injured at the age of 73 in a diving accident, which forced him to stop diving, and arthritis in his old age eventually prompted him to use a wheelchair. Desonay lived out the final years of his life in a house near the beach in Ostia, Roma, and died at the age of 89.