The Countdown to the XXXIII Olympiad is on! Only six months from today until the Open Ceremonies! (January 26)
The XXXIII Olympiad is only six months away !!! July 26th marks Day One and the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Paris, France.
The countdown to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris has officially begun, as July 26 marks six months until the Opening Ceremony. The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad will be like no other; it will have been a much shorter three year period, rather than the typical four year duration since the last Games in Tokyo were delayed a year, due to the pandemic.
Also for the first time, the 33-event swimming competition will take place over a nine day period, an increase of one day in the program. The swimming program will begin on Day one of competition, July 27 and run through 4 August at La Defense Arena in the Nanterre area of Paris.
Selection for Swimming for Team USA will be held for the first time ever in Indianapolis, Indiana, June 15-23, 2024.
For the first time ever, the event will be staged on a football field, as Lucas Oil Stadium is planning to host the Olympic Trials in front of crowds of expected hundreds of thousands over a nine day period.
“From day one, I truly believed that there was no bigger, more exciting, everything-on-the-line Olympic event in this country than the Swimming Trials and envisioned the heights that we could take it to,” USA Swimming President & CEO Tim Hinchey III said. “Given their track record, we are incredibly confident and excited in Indianapolis’ ability to conduct a technically flawless competition and to stage a world-class event. We are also proud of Indiana Sports Corp’s commitment to partnering with us in giving back to the local community and leaving a legacy far beyond our nine-day meet.”
Selection for Team USA Diving will be held for the first time ever in Knoxville at the University of Tennesee in June. The dates will be coming soon.
The sport of Diving will take place at the Olympic Games, July 27-August 10;
Artistic Swimming at the Olympic Games will be held 5th August through the 10th and Water Polo will be 5-11 of August.
Passages: Lance Larson, 1980 ISHOF Honoree Controversially Denied Olympic Gold, Dies at 83
Lance Larson — Photo Courtesy: ISHOF
by DAVID RIEDER – SENIOR WRITER
23 January 2024, 06:29pm
Lance Larson, a former world-record holder in the 100 butterfly and 200 IM and the winner of two Olympic medals at the 1960 Games, passed away January 19 at age 83. Larson was a longtime resident of Southern California, attending USC before working as a dentist in Orange County later in life while continuing to compete in Masters swimming.
Larson was the first high school swimmer to break 50 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle before becoming the first man to ever break 1:00 in the 100-meter fly, setting the world record on two occasions in 1960 prior to competing at the Rome Olympics. But Larson is best known for what happened in Rome, when a controversial decision by the head judge on deck denied him Olympic gold in the 100 free.
The Olympic swimming program in 1960 consisted of only six individual men’s events plus two relays, with both of Larson’s world-record events omitted. That left the 100 free as his only chance for an individual medal, and Larson faced off with Australia’s John Devitt down the stretch of the race. Larson appeared to touch the wall first, but in a massive controversy, Devitt was declared the winner, leaving Larson with silver.
Larson did, however, earn gold as part of the U.S. men’s 400 medley relay, in which he swam butterfly and his team finished in a world-record mark of 4:05.4. He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Swimmer in 1980.
A celebration of life for Larson will take place March 1 at 11 a.m. at the Garden Grove Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in Garden Grove, Calif. According to an obituary published in the Orange County Register, Larson’s family is asking for contributions in his memory to be made to the Trojan Victory Fund, which supports the USC men’s and women’s swimming and diving program.
Lance Larson, right, and John Devitt, middle, after a controversial judging decision handed the Australian gold in a 100 freestyle final at Rome 1960 in which Manuel Dos Santos, of Brazil, claimed bronze – Photo Courtesy: ISHOF film still
At the 1960 Games, the relatively-new automatic timing technology was not official in declaring winners and medalists, and neither were the hand-timers placed on deck. Instead, place judges were responsible for determining the order of finish, and two of the three first-place judges said Devitt had gotten to the wall first. However, two of the three second-place judges also ruled for Devitt, forcing the situation into flux.
Hand-timing results were 55.0, 55.1 and 55.1 for Larson and 55.2 from all three timers for Devitt. The automatic timing system said that Larson had gotten to the wall six hundredths ahead of Devitt, 55.10 to 55.16. But that’s when chief judge Hans Runströmer got involved. Runströmer, the chief judge, was not supposed to have any say in determining the order of placement, but he stepped in and ruled in favor of Devitt, even though it appeared that Runströmer did not have a clear view of the finish.
Both of the men were listed with times of 55.2, and while Larson was given the Olympic record, Devitt got the gold medal. An appeal by the American team, which included recorded video evidence and was supported by American FINA official Max Ritter, was unsuccessful, and further attempts to change the results over the years never resulted in Larson receiving gold. Devitt passed away in August at age 86.
The events of that 100 free Olympic final would force change in the sport, with influential voices calling reliable automatic timing in advance of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. And just 12 years later, touchpads would be used to break a tie for Olympic gold, with Sweden’s Gunnar Larsson given the gold in the 400 IM over American Tim McKee by a margin of two thousandths, 4:31.981 to 4:31.983. After that, though, ties to the hundredth resulted in shared Olympic gold medals, and after Americans Larson and McKee were both denied the top prize, three future ties for Olympic gold would all involve at least one American.
2023 ISHOF Honoree Michael Phelps and wife Nicole Announce Birth of Fourth Son
Photo Courtesy: Annie Grevers
by DAN D’ADDONA — SWIMMING WORLD MANAGING EDITOR
23 January 2024, 01:50pm
Michael Phelps, Nicole Phelps Announce Birth of Fourth Son
The Phelps family is now a family of six. Olympic champion Michael Phelps and wife Nicole Phelps announced the birth of Nico Michael Phelps.
He was born on Jan. 16, 2024.
“(Nicole) and I wanna welcome Nico Michael Phelps to the world,” Phelps posted on Instagram. “We’re so blessed to be given a 4th child. We’re now a family of 6!”
Nico is the fourth child and they are all boys, leading to plenty of jokes about a Phelps relay.
Michael Phelps announced the upcoming birth at his induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Phelps won 28 Olympic medals during his spectacular career, 10 more than the second-most of all time. Of that total, Phelps won 23 gold medals, 14 more than the second-most in history. His career featured 33 medals from the World Championships and 21 medals from the Pan Pacific Championships, along with an incredible 39 world records.
As impressive as his accomplishments in the pool, Phelps has served as a role model to the next generation of athletes to walk the deck, and his public emphasis on the importance of mental health has highlighted the need to take care of oneself and seek support when necessary.
He and Nicole started the Michael Phelps Foundation and have done several other things to support swimmers in a variety of ways.
Now, their family has a relay.
Save the Date! October 4 & 5, ISHOF’s 2024 Honoree Induction Weekend
January 23, 2023
Mark your calendars now! The International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) has selected the dates for the 2024 Honoree Induction Ceremonies and the ISHOF Aquatic Awards presented by AquaCal Weekend.
The 59th Annual ISHOF Honoree Induction weekend will be held Friday, October 4, and Saturday, October 5, 2024 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Make your plans now to attend!
The Class of 2024 will be announced sometime in late winter. The ISHOF Awards and other award winners will be also honored during the Honoree weekend. Join our E-mail list or keep checking www.ishof.org or www.swimmingworld.com for more information for all the latest aquatic news!
The Induction weekend will begin Friday evening, October 4, 2023 and will celebrate the ISHOF Aquatic Aquatic Awards presented by AquaCal, which typically honors six stellar aquatic men /women from the following categories: competitive swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, water polo, recreational swimming and aquatic safety.
The other ISHOF specialty awards honored on Friday evening include: The Buck Dawson Authors Award, The Virginia Hunt Newman Award, The John K. Williams Jr. Adaptive Aquatics Award, The Judge G. Harold Martin Award, The ISHOF Service Award, and others.
On Saturday, October 5, 2024, ISHOF will host, the 59th Annual Honoree Induction Ceremony. The event will be hosted at the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort, located one mile north of ISHOF on beautiful Fort Lauderdale Beach. The Class of 2024 will be announced sometime in the late winter, so keep checking back for any announcements.
The ISHOF Honoree Induction will also host its annual silent auction. If you have anything you might want to donate to this year’s silent auction, please contact Meg Keller-Marvin at meg@ishof.org or call her at:570.594.4367
*Ask about our Honoree weekend sponsorship opportunities, email amy@ishof.org for more information“.
ISHOF gets visit from Norman and Janise Sarsfield, son and daughter-in-law of ISHOF Honor Contributor, Norman Sarsfield of Great Britain.
Last week, Norman and Janise Sarsfield stopped by ISHOF to visit and see the home of their Dad’s honor. They were last here in 2014, when Norman and his brother, Martin and their wives, came over for the induction of their Dad, who had passed away in 2003. And a well deserved-long overdue honor it was! (Read Norman’s bio below) We were glad to welcome them back and hope they can once again come back to Fort Lauderdale when the new ISHOF is completed and we have a whole new world to show them!
Norman Sarsfield (GBR)
Honor Contributor (2014)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: FINA TECHNICAL SWIMMING COMMITTEE: CHAIRMAN (1968-1972); LEN: BUREAU MEMBER, HONORARY SECRETARY, HONORARY LIFE PRESIDENT; FIRST PROFESSIONAL SECRETARY OF THE ASA (1970-1980); COMMONWEALTH GAMES: COUNCIL CHAIRMAN AND HONORARY TREASURER; 1959 EUROPEAN SWIMMING COACH OF THE YEAR; BRITISH TEAM MEMBER AND COACH OF SWIMMING AND DIVING NATIONAL TEAMS (1955 – 1969); AUTHOR OF FOUR BOOKS.
When he wanted to join the local Rowing Club in Durham City as a ten-year old, his mother insisted he should swim first. He liked it so much he took up swimming rather than rowing. Six years later Norman Woods Sarsfield was the city champion.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HwrTBgUyYIY%3Flist%3DPLjYWbX54Yv0Hajz_HtHecswNBl39Ybdz4
He was qualified as a teacher before enlisting in the British Army in 1940 and achieved the rank of Captain, serving in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Austria. In 1943, he was awarded the Military Cross for “gallantry under fire.” At the war’s end, he won gold medals at the Army Swimming championships before returning to Dunham where he reclaimed his championship titles and played on the water polo team until 1956.
This is the brief background for a man who would give a lifetime of service to promote swimming on local, national and international levels and whose induction into the Hall of Fame is long overdue.
From 1947 through 1970, Sarsfield was a school swimming teacher. That was his day job. In his “off time” he was a tireless volunteer with the local and regional chapters of the Amateur Swimming Association. He officiated at the 1948 Olympic Games, wrote instructional books and made training films for divers. He also coached both swimmers and divers and moved rapidly up the ranks of the ASA. In 1955, he started traveling as manager or coach of various England and British Swimming and Diving Teams and in 1958 was awarded the “European Swimming Coach of the Year” at the European Championships in Budapest.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=27S3GHilR68%3Flist%3DPLjYWbX54Yv0HVOw5kHd1i5ylYWBNDFnTY
In 1961, he developed the Personal Survival Awards. The awards were designed to promote confidence, learn to swim, fun, personal achievement and survival. He gave the commercial rights to the ASA and provided it, as a result, with much needed funding. He also devised the flipper-float method of teaching swimming for anyone to learn how to swim in ten minutes.
In 1966, he was elected President of the ASA, the youngest person to hold the office in the 20th century and in 1970 retired from teaching to become the first full-time, professional secretary general of the ASA. That same year he was appointed Chairman of the FINA Technical Swimming Committee and became a member of LEN’s Executive Committee and would serve as LEN’s Honorary Secretary for almost twenty years. He served as a member of the sports councils of the Central UK, Europe and the Commonwealth Games and was an outspoken proponent for the inclusion of synchronized swimming in the 1973 FINA World Championships and later for developing Masters Swimming and teaching the disabled to swim.
Sarsfield was a renowned orator and formidable debater who was also active in politics, first elected to the Durham Council in 1955 and then Mayor in 1964. During the time of the 1980 Moscow Olympic boycott, he was an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Thatcher’s desire to stop the British team from competing at the Games, saying that sport was non-political. He refused to accept the Prime Minister’s view, personally giving her his opinion, which won the day leading to the team’s successful competition at the Games.
He is author of four instructional books with a combined 11 editions titled: “Swimming for Everyone”, “Better Swimming”, “Competitive Swimming” and “Diving Instruction”.
In 1981 he was awarded the O.B.E., The Order of the British Empire, by Queen Elizabeth. He received the FINA Silver Pin in 1990 and was presented with the FINA Trophy by President Mustapha Larfaoui, for all his services to swimming. He passed away in 2003 at the age of 83.
Italian Supserstar Swimmer Federica Pellegrini & husband Matteo Giunta Announce Birth Of Baby Daughter
Article by Swimming World
by LIZ BYRNES – EUROPE CORRESPONDENT
03 January 2024, 10:26am
Federica Pellegrini & Matteo Giunta Announce Birth Of Baby Daughter
Two-time Olympic medallist Federica Pellegrini and Matteo Giunta have announced the birth of their daughter Matilde.
Matilde is the first child for the Italian couple who married in August 2022, months after Pellegrini retired from the sport following a long and illustrious career that spanned 17 years and five Olympics and which included 200 free gold and silver at Beijing 2008 and Athens 2004 respectively.
The 35-year-old also claimed six long-course world titles and seven European golds and her 200 free WR of 1:52.98 stood from the 2009 World Championships to July last year when Mollie O’Callaghan lowered it to 1:52.85 at the Fukuoka worlds.
In a post to social media, they said:
“Complicated 2 days….Finally you arrived !!!!
6:5103/01/2024
Matilde
“Thanks to the angels that cared for us during this journey, Titty, Marcello, Giada, Alessandra, Massimo and the entire team of the Sacred Heart hospital.”
Among those to congratulate them were Katinka Hosszu, Elena Di Liddo, World Aquatics and Juventus Football Club.
Friends we Lost in 2023
It is always sad to recall all the wonderful friends and family we have lost throughout the year. Each December, we like to take a look back and once again remember our friends officially, one last time.
Honoree Ursula Carlisle https://ishof.org/australias-swimming-community-mourns-the-passing-of-national-treasure-coaching-pioneer-and-ishof-honoree-ursula-carlile/
Honoree John Devitt https://ishof.org/ishof-loses-australian-honoree-john-devitt/
Coach Frank Keefe https://ishof.org/legendary-coach-frank-keefe-dies-at-85-leaves-lasting-legacy-at-numerous-stops/
Honoree Shiro Hashizume https://ishof.org/ishof-1992-honor-swimmer-shiro-hashizume-japans-oldest-living-olympic-medalist-dies-at-age-94/
Honoree Pat Keller McCormick https://ishof.org/ishof-and-the-world-of-diving-loses-one-of-the-greats-pat-keller-mccormick-may-12-1930-march-7-2023/
Honoree Great Anderson https://ishof.org/ishof-and-marathon-swimming-world-suffers-a-great-loss-greta-anderson-may-1-1927-february-6-2023/
Honoree Thea deWit https://ishof.org/thea-de-wit-of-the-netherlands-a-pioneer-in-womens-water-polo-passes-away-on-january-31-2023/
How An Olympic Champion Saved a Life and Opened Doors: The Story of Crissy Perham and Dick Franklin
by MATTHEW DE GEORGE – SENIOR WRITER
27 December 2023
How An Olympic Champion Saved a Life and Raised Awareness: The Story of Crissy Perham and Dick Franklin
Olympic gold medalist Crissy Perham (competing as Crissy Ahmann-Leighton at the Barcelona Games in 1992) helped save the life of the parent of another Olympic gold medalist—Missy Franklin’s dad, Dick Franklin—by becoming a kidney donor in August 2022.
Crissy Perham is no stranger to intense focus on a goal. So when she saw the Facebook post shared into her feed in January 2022 and made a decision that would alter lives beyond her own, she turned on her tunnel vision.
Through mutual friends, Perham—who competed as Crissy Ahmann-Leighton when she won three medals at the 1992 Olympics—saw D.A. Franklin’s post that her husband, Dick, had reached end-stage kidney failure. To their network of friends, D.A. put out a request for a “Hail Mary” of an organ donor to save his life.
Perham saw the post, saw a chance to make a difference, and acted.
On went the blinders, honing her focus and containing her excitement: to avoid illness before donation, to check off boxes in preparing her side of the process mentally and emotionally, to be on top of her recovery after the transplant on Aug. 24, 2022, to stay healthy. The intense drive on not just the donation going well, but telling her and Dick’s story to advocate more to follow her path left little time for Perham to fully process all of what her choice meant to her.
So this September, more than a year after the surgery, Perham gratefully accepted an invitation to speak at the fifth annual Trivia for Life event in Denver, for the benefit of the American Transplant Foundation. When she got on the stage for her three-minute talk, Perham got as far as, “Thanks to the Franklin family and my husband, Charlie…” before a tidal wave of emotions overwhelmed her.
“I think I just, as a former athlete, you just march right through it,” Perham said last month. “To be a year removed from it—and realizing how amazing it was—is, I think, why it was so emotional a year post-op.”
Perham’s emotional response speaks volumes about her decision. Although she knew the reputation of Dick and D.A. Franklin—parents of Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin—she had never met them. Their famous daughter didn’t factor into Perham’s decision to donate, their plea finding her in the right life circumstances to give an organ—so much so that Perham had intended to originally remain anonymous.
The delayed upwelling of emotion underscores how routine a decision Perham felt she was making. But it also evinces the power in the extended family that the kidney, which the Franklins dubbed “Olympia,” has created. Across three generations of families and two eras of American Olympic swimmers, it’s not just a selfless deed, but a testament to the interconnectedness of the swimming world.
“There’s not really words to describe,” Missy said. “This person was already miraculous. The fact that they were a match, that they were willing to do this for my father—and then to find out that connection (as Olympic swimmers)—I think we were just speechless, all three of us. It was almost hard to wrap your mind around how unbelievable that connection was.”
FROM IOWA TO THE OLYMPICS
Whatever else time may dull, there remains a tenacity to Perham at age 53. It’s easy to square the life-changing donor with the scrappy rise of an Olympic gold medalist.
Photo Courtesy: Crissy Perham
That’s in part because at first, there was no pool. Perham was born Crissy Ahmann—she married for the first time while at the University of Arizona to become Ahmann-Leighton—in Yankton, South Dakota (population 11,919 in 1970), and raised in New London, Iowa (2,043).
Until a trip to her grandparents’ house in California at age 6, she swam only in ponds. When it came time to train seriously, her parents drove her the hour roundtrip to Burlington, Iowa. Her dad, Leo, a teacher and basketball coach, eventually moved the family to Benson, Ariz., when Crissy was in high school, where the trip to train at a proper facility would be the 47 miles each way to Tucson in her 1982 Toyota Tercel.
The slight 5-8 butterflyer cut a different figure than her more imposing peers like Jenny Thompson. But that didn’t stop Perham from winning a pair of NCAA titles with the Wildcats and taking down Mary T. Meagher’s hallowed short course yards record in the 100 fly.
It led her to the Barcelona Olympics, where she won a silver medal in the 100 fly, outtouched by 12-hundredths by China’s Qian Hong’s Olympic record. (Perham had been 1-hundredth of a second quicker than Qian’s time in winning Olympic Trials in March.) She added gold medals for prelims of the 400 free relay and the final of the 400 medley relay, the latter a world record with Thompson, Lea Loveless and Anita Nall.
Perham gave birth to her eldest son, Alex, while competing. She was one of several stars from 1992 who fell just short of a second Olympics at the 1996 Trials, then retired shortly thereafter. She married Charlie Perham, an engineer and retired colonel in the United States Air Force, the family traveling often to California, Virginia, Nevada and eventually Texas. She became a swim parent to Alex and her younger son, Ryan, who followed Crissy’s footsteps to swim at Arizona.
All of it positioned her to be ready to answer D.A.’s call for a donor, even if Perham can’t quite put a finger on why that was.
“It’s been over a year, and I wish I had a better answer,” she said. “But I don’t know why. It just made me want to do something.”
A DONOR’S DECISION
Perham’s journey as a donor, in broad strokes, is an amazing act of selflessness. Fill in the lines, and it reveals a portrait of the swim community’s interconnectedness.
“Team Kidney” Frank Busch, Patty Busch, D.A. Franklin and Charlie Perham. Photo Courtesy: Crissy Perham
Perham had never met the Franklin family before deciding to donate a kidney to Dick. She saw D.A.’s post thanks to a share from mutual friend David Arluck, the former agent and founder of Fitter and Faster. (Perham had never met Arluck in person, either.) One of the few people Perham confided in about her plans to donate was Frank Busch, her coach at Arizona and a friend of the Franklin family from his tenure with USA Swimming while Missy was one of the program’s stars.
Perham intended to donate anonymously, a complicated decision that requires donor and recipient wanting to know the identity of the other and pursue a relationship. But Busch convinced Perham that getting to know the Franklins would be beneficial. Perham assented only a month before the procedure. “Frank was like, I think that you should meet them. I think they should know it’s you,” Perham said. “We’re a swimming family, they’re amazing people, you’re amazing for doing this.”
That group comprised the support network as the transplant neared. Perham stayed with the Busches before her procedure. Frank, his wife Patty, D.A. and Charlie were there the day of the surgery to provide moral and logistical support.
“Crissy didn’t know us from Adam,” Franklin said. “She knew of us, but there wasn’t a personal story. This was genuinely coming from the straight-up goodness of her heart…of ‘someone is in need and I could potentially fill that need, so I’m going to try.’ That in and of itself was incredible. And when we got to know Crissy…and it was like, oh my gosh, we could not have picked anyone better to become family! We absolutely adore her and Charlie.”
Perham knew of the Franklins and had watched Missy’s career from afar. She identifies as an Olympic junkie, even before her career. She remembers watching the 1976 Games as a kid and cites the 1980 Winter Olympics and 1984 Summer Games on American soil as “transformative” in shaping her goals. So of course she knew of Franklin’s achievements, of the five Olympic gold medals, the 11 World Championships, the four world records. But Perham was also attuned to the less glamorous side—of the injuries that hampered the latter stages of Franklin’s career and the way she battled the weight of expectations at the 2016 Olympics.
“It was so amazing to watch her as a high school kid, just the immense talent that she had, how long she could stay at the top,” Perham said. “Watching her struggle was heartbreaking—and we’ve all been there—and she just handled herself with such class and grace. I know she’s very well respected and well liked within the swimming community.”
When Franklin found out Perham was the donor, she made the choice not to look into Perham’s past. Instead, she wanted to meet and learn about Perham directly. Times and medals would be scant description of someone giving her something as valuable as more time with her father. Only a human connection could do that.
Franklin had married former Texas swimmer Hayes Johnson in 2019, and they welcomed a daughter, Caitlin, in 2021, almost a year to the day of her father’s transplant. The connection as mothers was another common trait that Franklin and Perham built their bond around.
“As a fellow mom, she really understood the gift that she was giving,” Franklin said. “I think she was able to see it from my perspective: Giving me time with my dad was so special, but giving my daughter time with her grandfather was even more of a priority.
“It’s something that every time my dad gets quality time with Caitlin, I text Crissy or I call her with, ‘I just want you to know, every single one of these moments that I look up and I see Caitlin and my dad together, or the moments where my dad and I are going out on a special date night together, I think of you every single time, because they would not be possible without you.’”
In that way, the relationship between the families has provided even more than the transplant. “Swimming has given me so much,” Franklin said, “but never in a million years did I think it was going to give me the person that was going to save my dad’s life.”
ON THE TRAIL OF ADVOCACY
Perham always obliges in discussing her donorship—she jokes that she won’t shut up about it. It comes with such genuine enthusiasm that exceeds merely her first-hand experience.
More than 100,000 people are waiting for an organ in the United States, a new person added to the national transplant waiting list every 10 minutes. On average, 17 people on that list die every day, despite more than 42,000 transplants performed last year. Almost 90,000 of those waiting need a kidney, a procedure that, like a liver transplant, can be achieved from a living donor.
Photo Courtesy: John Lohn
Perham worked with counselors to make sure she was emotionally prepared for her donation. Physically, she describes the procedure as orders of magnitude less onerous than a bout of appendicitis she suffered a decade earlier.
“I gave a kidney to someone on a Wednesday, I was discharged on a Friday, and I was walking through a farmer’s market on Saturday,” she said. “I didn’t realize the need for kidneys and livers. I didn’t realize how you could be a living donor and how many people needed help until I got into it.”
Perham lived an active life before donation and continues that lifestyle with few restrictions. She’s an avid CrossFitter, tailoring workouts after the surgery and finding community in the gym. She and two former Arizona teammates walked more than 130 miles through Western Europe in the Camino de Santiago this year.
In the water, she teamed with Kidney Donor Athletes for a relay in the Swim for Alligator Lighthouse in the Florida Keys. The self-professed “black-line girl” took to open water with two fellow kidney donors and one recipient, kayaking for two three-mile stretches between a pair of one-mile swims. “Our priority was to raise awareness that you can donate an organ or receive an organ and still lead a super, super active life,” she said.
Franklin, an outspoken advocate, has added organ donation to her list of philanthropic priorities. She’s partnered with Otsuka Pharmaceutical to raise awareness about Dick’s condition, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), and about the need for living donors.
Perham gets a tad sheepish when she admits that two friends have become living donors after learning of her experience. But the magnitude of what that decision means—of the two families they’ve helped, of the family she’s grown into thanks to her donation—brings that intensity back with full and unapologetic force.
“I feel super moved about being an advocate for it now,” she said. “And knowing that two people literally have donated because of me, I’m so, so proud of that.”
A Special Good Bye and Thank you to long time ISHOF employee, Laurie Marchwinski
The International Swimming Hall of Fame would like to take this opportunity to say good bye and thank you to Laurie Marchwinksi, for her 43 years of dedicated service to ISHOF. Laurie started at ISHOF as an 18 year old, part-time employee, when she first moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1980. She eventually worked her way up to Chief Operating Officer, put in charge by Brent Rutemiller, during Covid, while he was stuck in Arizona and unable to travel to Ft. Lauderdale as CEO.
During that time, and not having any background in these areas, Laurie put a small team together that researched, organized, and finally catalogued all of the 55+ years of ISHOF memorabilia, which we had been trying to do for years. She also is the one, who led the way in getting the entire back (original) West Museum organized, packed up, and eventually moved to our new climate controlled storage unit located off site, in time for the demolition of the building. It was a 2+ year process. This was probably one of her greatest contributions of her 43 years at ISHOF, but there were many others; too many to list.
We want to thank Laurie for all that she has done for ISHOF, giving her many years of service. We truly appreciate you. Thank you Laurie! We wish you good luck and success in the future. You will be missed.
2024 International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony to be held in Cancun, Mexico!
The International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (IMSHOF) has recently announced their plans for the 2024 IMSHOF Honoree Induction Ceremony, which will be held in Cancun, Mexico, the weekend of May 17-19, 2024.
Cancun (May 17-19, 2024) Ceremony Update ~ IMSHOF is making plans with the local host committee.
The (draft) schedule is as follows (with some deciding to take public tours/relax on the beach for some of the weekend).
Friday, May 17, 2024
Many will arrive early, and casual dinners will be organized. Watch for invitations closer to the day.
Saturday, May 18, 2024
1.9 km and 3.8 km swims, swim discussion (Open to the public)
Congress (for ceremony attendees)
Induction & Awards Dinner, and after dinner drinks.
Sunday, May 19, 2024
10 km swim
Class of 2024 Inductees
Leonie Beck, Honor Swimmer, Germany
Arianna Bridi, Honor Swimmer, Italy
Allan Do Carmo, Honor Swimmer, Brazil
Sam Greetham, Honor Administrator, Great Britain
Ros Hardiman, Honor Swimmer, Great Britain
Suzanne Heim-Bowen, Honor Swimmer, United States of America
Pauline Jackson, Honor Administrator, United States of America
Lynton Mortensen, Honor Swimmer, Australia
Courtney Moates Paulk, Honor Swimmer, United States of America
Dr. Evgenij Pop Acev, Honor Swimmer, Macedonia
Simone Ruffini, Honor Swimmer, Italy
Dan Simonelli, Honor Coach, United States of America
Catherine Vogt Kase, Honor Coach, United States of America
Class of 2024 IMSHOF Award Winners
Melissa Cunningham Roberts, Honor Swimmer, Australia, 2013 – The Dale Petranech Award for Services to the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame
Massimo Giuliani, Honor Coach, Italy, 2020 – The International Swimming Hall of Fame’s (ISHOF) Irving Davids and Captain Roger W. Wheeler Memorial Award
Penny Lee Dean, EdD, Honor Swimmer, United States of America, 1980 – The International Swimming Hall of Fame’s (ISHOF) Poseidon Award
for more information regarding this event, click here: www.imshof.org