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
Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center hosts the First Edition of the CAN-AM-Mex High Diving Challenge
USA Diving and Diving Plongeon Canada welcomed the first edition of the CANAMEX High Diving Challenge held at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center, December 8-9, 2023.
The event was used as the USA team selection event for the World Aquatics World Championships which will be held in Doha, Qatar, February 2-18, 2024.
Ellie Smart took the top spot for the women and James Lichtenstein won on the Men’s side. Both will be competing at the World Aquatic Championships. Fort Lauderdale’s own, Coach Dave Burgering will be traveling to Doha representing the USA as coach of the High Diving Team. Go Team USA!!!
World Aquatics High Diving Schedule / Doha, Qatar
High Diving:
Tuesday, February 13: 3:00am: Women’s 20m Prelims / 6:00am: Men’s 27m Prelims
Wednesday, February 14: 3:00am: Women’s 20m Finals
Thursday, February 15: 3:00am: Men’s 27m Finals
Let’s take a look back at the ISHOF Museum and some of the memorabilia and artifacts…..
FUN FRIDAY: Watch our video from 2010 below
Former ISHOF Board Member and Chairman of the Board Dale Neuburger named as recipient of the 2023 George M. Steinbrenner III Sport Leadership Award ~ Congratulations Dale!
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The United States Olympic & Paralympic Endowment announced Dale Neuburger as the recipient of the George M. Steinbrenner III Sport Leadership Award. The award was presented during the annual awards ceremony at the New York Athletic Club in New York City recently. In addition to Neuburger, with a lifetime of service to aquatic sports and Olympic ideals, Mary Lou Retton, 1984 Olympic gold gymnast and fitness ambassador, was recognized with the William E. Simon Award and multi-world and Olympic medals wrestler, Bruce Baumgartner, was the honoree of the General Douglas MacArthur Award. Each of these individuals were honored for their commitment andcontributions to the Olympic and Paralympic movements.
Dale Neuburger has held a variety of domestic leadership roles within aquatics, including president ofUnited States Aquatic Sports; president of USA Swimming; and chairman of the board of directors of theInternational Swimming Hall of Fame. Internationally, he has held leadership roles in World Aquatics andhas served as technical delegate within the International Olympic Committee for five Olympic Games. Heserved for eight years as a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and a member of its executive committee for four years. The Steinbrenner award is presented annually to honor outstanding members of the Olympic and Paralympic family who have contributed to sport through management, sport organization endeavors or the enhancement of competitive opportunities; and who have displayed qualities of leadership, ethical conduct, and dedicated responsibility during a longstanding commitment to sport.
Mary Lou Retton catapulted to international fame, igniting a new era of American dominance ingymnastics during the Olympic Games Los Angeles 1984 when she became the first American woman towin a gold medal in gymnastics, scoring two perfect 10s along the way. With five medals, the most of anyathlete during the 1984 Olympic Games, she went on to win numerous national and internationalcompetitions and became the first woman to appear on the iconic Wheaties box. She retired fromcompetition in 1986 but remains deeply involved in the gymnastics community and is a renownedmotivational speaker traveling the world as a fitness ambassador, promoting the benefits of propernutrition and regular exercise. The Simon award is given to an individual or group who has madeextraordinary contributions to the advancement of the Olympic and Paralympic movements.Bruce Baumgartner is one of just eight athletes in American history to medal in four different Olympiads.With five international titles, nine world championship medals and four Olympic medals (2 golds, 1 silver,1 bronze), he has won the most world and Olympic medals among American wrestlers. It was at the 1984Olympic Games that he became Olympic champion and America’s first gold medalist in 60 years of super-heavyweight wrestling and went on to compete in three more Olympic Games, earning three additional Olympic medals. Bruce served as head wrestling coach and director of athletics at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, establishing numerous student-athlete endowed scholarships and he currently serves as president of USA Wrestling. The Douglas MacArthur award is given to an individual who has exhibited exemplary service to the USOPC and athletes.
The USOPE was established by the USOPC in 1984 to administer and invest the corpus of endowedfunds that resulted from the surplus of the Olympic Games Los Angeles 1984. A nonprofit organization,its objective is to support the USOPC and its member organizations, with the overall aim of enhancingOlympic and Paralympic sports in the United States. A separate entity from the USOPC, the USOPE’s netassets have grown to approximately $235 million, while awarding grants to the USOPC and its memberorganizations totaling $374 million over the last 39 years.
Happy Birthday Miya Tachibana!!
Miya Tachibana (JPN)
Honor Synchronized / Artistic Swimmer (2011)
FOR THE RECORD: 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: bronze (team); 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (team); 2004 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (duet, team); 1994 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (duet), bronze (team); 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (duet, team), bronze (solo); 2001 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet), bronze (solo), 2003 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (duet, team); 1999 FINA WORLD CUP: silver (duet, team), bronze (solo); 2002 FINA WORLD CUP: silver (solo, duet); 1994 ASIAN GAMES: gold (duet); 1998 ASIAN GAMES: gold (solo, duet); 2002 ASIAN GAMES: gold (solo, duet); 22 JAPAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (10 solo, 12 duet).
Miya Tachibana grew up in Otsu, Shiga, Japan loving the water so much that by the fourth grade, she was competing in synchronized swimming. By high school she was winning the Junior World Championships. Following in the footsteps of her Hall of Fame predecessor, Mikako Kotani, she became one of the world’s most successful synchronized swimmers, and Japan’s most decorated Olympic and World Championship synchronized swimmer of all time.
At three Asian Games, she won all gold medals in solo and duet. At three World Championships, from 1994 to 2003, she placed second in duet. Following the 1998 Perth World Championships, Miya received the FINA Prize for her outstanding performances that year.
Competing in three Olympic Games, she won five medals. Her Olympic performances began in 1996 in Atlanta, with Japan winning the bronze medal in the team event, the only synchronized swimming event of the Atlanta Games. Four years later in Sydney, she and teammate Miho Takeda won the silver medal in duet, less than one point behind the Russian duo of Hall of Famer’s Olga Brusnikina and Maria Kisseleva. Miya and Miho repeated the silver-medal wins four years later in Athens, the only duo to medal in successive Olympic Games after the Josephson twins in 1988 and 1992. Japan continued in the silver medal count for the Team Event in both 2000 and 2004. At Japan’s National Championships, Miya won 22 national titles, ten of them solo.
Come see the USA Women’s Water Polo Team take on the Tokyo Olympic Silver medalists in our own backyard at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex
On Saturday, December 9, 2023, the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center will host the top two world’s greatest Women’s Water Polo Teams, fighting head to head in a match for the ages! The Number #2 Team, the USA Women, will go up against the Number #1 Team in the World, the Women’s Spanish Team, who are the current Silver medalists from the last Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Come out for a great day of excitement, and fun in the sun, watching the women go head to head! See who will be crowned the best in the world!
Click the link below to buy tickets. The teams will also be in Miami, on Thursday, December 7, at Ransom Everglades High School. Tickets are also available for that match as well. All info is below.
For tickets: https://usawaterpolo.ticketspice.com/2023-womens-national-team-florida-exhibition-series