Passages: Kathy McKee, ASCA Hall of Famer and SwimMAC Coach
Photo Credit SwimMAC Carolina
by MATTHEW DE GEORGE – SENIOR WRITER
31 May 2023, 11:35am
Passages: Kathy McKee, ASCA Hall of Famer and SwimMAC Coach
Kathy McKee, a long-time member of the SwimMAC coaching staff and an inductee to the American Swim Coaches Association Hall of Fame, has died.
The ASCA announced her death on Wednesday. She was 69 years old.
McKee coached at SwimMAC Carolina, Dynamo Swim Club in Georgia and North Carolina Aquatic Club. Most of her professional life was spent at SwimMAC, tracking the growth of one of the most influential clubs in the nation.
She was hired in 1994 as the manager of competitive team development, helping then head coach Pat Hogan develop the club’s original site at Davidson College. She was instrumental in working with swimmers from pre-competitive to senior team for a club whose numbers swelled through the years. Among her accolades was being a coach on the 2007 national junior team that competed in Australia.
McKee left SwimMAC in 2012 and returned in 2017, hired as an associate head coach. She was listed as a member of SwimMAC’s leadership team as of her passing.
McKee’s five-year hiatus from SwimMAC took her to North Carolina Aquatic Club in Chapel Hill. She helped one swimmer qualify for the national junior team there and was honored as North Carolina Swimming Age Group Coach of the Year in 2014.
Before SwimMAC, McKee helped develop national-level swimmers at Dynamo in Georgia, where she spent 17 years and rose to become the head age-group coach. Among her charges were Mary Ellen Blanchard, Carlton Bruner and Eric Wunderlich. She was three times voted the Georgia Age Group Coach of the Year and won the Phillips 66 Outstanding Service Award.
McKee was inducted to the ASCA Hall of Fame in 2019. She served for six years on the ASCA Board, among other committees within USA Swimming and the LSCs in North Carolina and Georgia. She had been scheduled to speak at this year’s ASCA World Clinic.
Every Child A Swimmer signs Legislation in Georgia and Arkansas
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 24, 2023 – Every Child A Swimmer (ECAS), an organization. aimed at promoting water safety and swim education to children, is proud to announce the successful passage of new legislation in Georgia, Arkansas, following the first state to pass the bill last year, Florida.
Championed by Casey McGovern, mother of Edna Mae McGovern, who was tragically lost in a drowning accident. Casey has dedicated her life to creating impactful change through early education and exposure to water safety resources. The legislation in Georgia was given the name of Edna Mae to honor her legacy and the impact this will have on students.
The new legislation created in tandem with local governments and Every Child A Swimmer emphasizes the importance of equipping students with the necessary skills to navigate water environments safely. Drowning is the number one cause of death of children ages 1-5 and the ECAS legislation looks to curb that by introducing early access to water safety information.
The passage of these bills in Georgia, Arkansas, and Florida is a monumental step forward in our mission to make every child a swimmer, said Casey McGovern, Program Director at ECAS. Water safety education is crucial, and we hope this legislation makes a tangible impact on the lives of children and families.
The legislation mandates that schools incorporate water safety resources, such as where to find free swim lessons, educational materials, and drowning prevention strategies, into their curriculum. By partnering with local swimming facilities, ECAS ensures that children receive proper training and access to supervised swim programs. This collaborative approach between schools, community organizations, and government agencies creates a comprehensive network of support for water safety education.
For more information about the Every Child A Swimmer organization and its initiatives, please visit https://everychildaswimmer.org/
About Every Child A Swimmer Organization: Every Child A Swimmer (ECAS) organization is dedicated to promoting water safety education and reducing drowning incidents among children. By working closely with schools, community organizations, and government agencies, ECAS provides access to swim lessons, educational resources, and drowning prevention strategies.
The organization strives to empower every child with life-saving swimming skills and create a culture of water safety awareness.
Bill, Mike and Casey McGovern traveled to Arkansas for the Every Child a Swimmer bill signing ceremony with Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Rep. Mary Bentley and Senator Jim Dotson.
We would like to promote the Every Child a Swimmer legislation is a law in three states, with more to come. We want to continue working to have it passed in every state throughout the country.
We would like a HUGE PUSH through all channels focusing on the positivity that this law (and our program) will do.
54% of adult Americans cannot swim well enough to save themselves in an emergency.
Learning to Swim reduces the risk of drowning by 88%.
This law will help to educate parents and caregivers on the need to make swim lessons a priority.
Swimming is the only sport that has the potential to save a life.
The numerous health benefits of swimming.
Having the ability to swim, opens up multiple career opportunities that require the ability to swim.
The connection to ISHOF
Learn to Swim Scholarships available to families from underserved communities.
We need everyone’s help to implement the ECAS legislation into their state.
Drowning is Preventable!
On May 4, Bill Kent, Casey McGovern and the Every Child a Swimmer Team traveled to Atlanta to see the Every Child A Swimmer bill be passed into legislation.
Thank you Senator Shawn Still, Scott Hilton, Representative Matt Dubnik, @Representative Chris Erwin and all of the representatives who helped to see this bill come to fruition. From the ECAS social media page: “Yesterday was a great day for water safety and saving lives.” ~ May 4, 2023
Together, WE will make Every Child a Swimmer.
Molly Carlson, Constantin Popovici Claim High Dive Titles at World Aquatics High Diving World Cup in Fort Lauderdale
by DAN D’ADDONA — SWIMMING WORLD MANAGING EDITOR
28 May 2023, 09:19am
The World Aquatics High Diving World Cup saw some tremendous diving Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center this week.
As a qualifier for the World Aquatics Championship in Fukuoka Japan this summer, divers from all over the world competed in the high dive events at the newly renovated Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center.
https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-
Canada’s Molly Carlson and Romania’s Constantin Popovici claimed titles on Saturday as they gear up for the world championships after automatically qualifying with their performances.
“I’m so excited to go to Fukuoka,” Carlson told World Aquatics. “Not only to be with this incredible group of high divers changing the world and pushing the sport, but to be able to see other sports and cheer for Canada in swimming and water polo.”
Carlson finished with 374.00 points, earning 121 on her fourth dive (a half-twisting forward quad with a 4.4 degree of difficulty) to have enough for the title after two days of elite diving.
“It’s definitely surreal,“ she said. “I knew deep down: if you get the right take-off, you’re going to get the perfect entry. In the air, I was like: this is it. I came up and I knew; I knew I was on top of the podium.”
Rhiannan Iffland finished second just 10.15 points behind Carlson in another stellar finish in Fort Lauderdale.
“The last dive is my bread and butter,” Iffland told World Aquatics. “I was excited to see where it was at the start of the season. Now I know what I need to do. I need a stronger take-off and I could have stood up a little more at the end. In Fukuoka, I’ll be working to chase my two gold medals from 2017 and 2019. I’m not ready to give up the top spot just yet.”
Third place went to Carlson’s training partner Jessica Macaulay.
Photo Courtesy: Eric Espada/World Aquatics
In the men’s field, the top three from Friday maintained their positions on the podium, all within 17.15 points of each other. Popovici finished with 473.90 points to pull away from the field.
Spain’s Carlos Gimeno was second with 454.40 points, followed by France’s Gary Hunt (438.15).
Popovici will also be competing on the 10m platform in Japan in an effort to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics on 10m.
“I was injured last year so the results in 2022 were not what I had expected,” he said. He recently changed coaches and clubs. “I want to win everything this year, not just in Fukuoka.”
Who remembers this iconic Sports Illustrated photo from 1973? 50 years old this month…..
50 years ago Mark and Suzy Spitz tied the knot and were married at the Beverley Hills hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on May 6, 1973. About a week later, they were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in this iconic photo.
Today in Fort Lauderdale, Mark came home to ISHOF to visit the museum with his family, wife Suzy, son Justin and his fiancé, as well as attend the World Aquatics High Diving World Cup in its second day of competition. In a complete stroke of luck, ISHOF Curator, Bruce Wigo, pulled out the May 14, 1973 Sports Illustrated Issue of Mark and Suzy to show them and they re-created the classic pose, just like they did 50 years ago. Mark and Suzy celebrated 50 years of marriage on May 6, 1973.
Mark and Suzy Spitz May 14, 1974 and today May 27, 2023
Mark looking over his Honoree panel from his induction year, 1977.
It is always great to have Honorees come back for a visit but we must say today was one of those really special days. Thanks Mark and Suzy for stopping by and thanks Bruce for pulling out the Sports Illustrated and to Mark and Suzy for posing again for us!!!
ISHOF Curator Bruce Wigo and Honoree Mark Spitz
Look who made the front page!!!
Thanks to the World Aquatics High Diving World Cup being in town and competing at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex, our beautiful new tower once again made the front page of the Sun Sentinel.
Article from today’s Sun Sentinel:
High-diving competition draws divers from all overParticipants could punch a ticket to championship event
By Abigail Hasebroock South Florida Sun Sentinel
Before Braden Rumpit jumps into some weekend fun, he will face a far more daring plunge — one that involves falling a distance of about eight stories.High divers from 20 countries around the globe will compete Friday and Saturday at the High Diving World Cup. This year, the international event will be held at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center.
Competitors are vying not only for World Cup champion titles but also a spot at this summer’s 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
For the upcoming showdown, teams are traveling to Fort Lauderdale from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Ukraine, Mexico, Germany and more.
Rumpit, who is representing New Zealand because his father is from there, became the youngest person ever to perform a quintuple flip of a 27-meter diving platform at 21. He moved to Fort Lauderdale from Wisconsin in October to train with Steven LoBue, a professional diver.
This is the biggest competition Rumpit has ever contended with, but because he’s been training on the Fort Lauderdale dive tower, which is what all divers will use during the competition, he said he feels prepared. “I’m hoping that can carry me through and give me some extra confidence going into this weekend,” he said. “But for the most part, 27 meters is 27 meters.”
Four divers, including Rumpit, constitute Fort Lauderdale’s team.
The other three are: Eleanor Smart, 27, from Missouri, who placed second in the the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series twice.
James Litchenstein, 28, from Illinois, who also competed in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, making his debut in 2022.
Victor Ortega Serna, 35, from Colombia, who competed in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
Women compete on a 20-meter, or about 65-foot, dive tower while men compete on a 27-meter, or about 88-foot, dive tower.
During the event preview on Thursday, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis presented the athletes from the Fort Lauderdale diving team with construction pieces from the new diving platform as a souvenir.Rumpit said high diving is a small community, so he already knew almost all his competitors.“It’s going to take some of the pressure off,” he said.
Today, we celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month
The were many early Honorees from the Hawaiian Islands, as well as other Pacific Islands, the most famous was probably Duke Kahanamokou, Olympian and the Father of Surfing and his brothers, but there were many others that paved the way for the athletes of today. Let’s take a look at some of those athletes that we have inducted over the years:
Duke Kahanamoku (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1965)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1912 gold (100m freestyle), silver (4x200m freestyle relay); 1920 gold (100m freestyle; 4x200m freestyle relay), 4th (water polo); 1924 silver (100m freestyle); 1932 team member (water polo); WORLD RECORDS: freestyle.
The history of modern swimming started with the English in 1838. It was the breaststroke, and still the breaststroke, when Matthew Webb swam the Channel in 1875; yet, bas-reliefs dating to 880 B.C. taken from the palace of Nimroud (now in the British Nimroud Gallery) show a fugitive escaping from soldiers by swimming a river using a head high overarm crawl. This stroke was evolving painfully in the western world until a bronzed Duke Kahanamoku swam out of the Hawaiian Islands with it in 1911. His world record times no one would believe.
Jam Handy describes The Duke as a superbly conditioned athlete planing and crawling over the top of the water as no one his size and only one smaller man, Perry McGillivry, seemed able to do. Only after ten years in Hollywood did a 42 year old Duke Kahanamoku in 1932 finally fail to make an Olympic team in swimming. He made it in water polo. He made his first Olympic team in 1912. “He still swam well,” says Handy, “but in the water like other mortals, he was no longer in that superb condition needed to get his body planing up on top of the water.” Kahanamoku, the perennial Sheriff of Honolulu, and island king in so many movies, was and is a real Duke by christened surname, as well as in deference to his royal Hawaiian blood. His father, Captain Kahanamoku, born in Princess Ruth’s palace during a visit of the Duke of Edinborough, named him Duke in honor of that occasion.
In swimming, he rates his dukedom by Olympic titles as well as his ambassadorship in first introducing surfing around the world, including Australia where it has become a national sport. Duke’s royal position in swimming took time to be recognized. He first startled the swimming world by shattering both the 50 and 100 yard world records on the anniversary of Hawaiian annexation day, August 2, 1911, just 12 days before his 21st birthday–doing 24 1/5 in the 40 or 1 3/5 seconds better than the record, and 55 2/5 in the 100, 4 3/5 seconds better than the record. Unfortunately the cast was all Hawaiian and the times were so unbelievable that the Amateur Athletic Union, headquartered in New York, refused to recognize them in spite of the careful reports that were compiled showing that the course in Honolulu Harbor had been measured before the race and 3 times after; had been surveyed by a registered surveyor, that the swimmers were swimming against the tide; and that his nearest competitor, Lawrence Cunha, was 30 feet behind.
After considerable correspondence back and forth, President Wahle of the AAU wrote:
“According to my mind, this matter should be treated very carefully and with extreme caution before the 100 yard record is to be accepted as an AAU record. If his 55 2/5 seconds were accepted and he should afterwards compete in the U.S. or Europe and be beaten by swimmers, the correctness of his 55 2/5 seconds would be seriously questioned as well as the good faith of the AAU.
For this reason, I would like to see Kahanamoku beat the fast men first and have the record accepted afterward.”
In the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, Longworth of Australia was the favorite but Duke won the Olympic championship in 63 2/5 seconds. Eight years later at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, on his 30th birthday, the Duke had to win his gold medal twice. The Australians protested his first win saying their man had been boxed, so the Duke had to win it again. Australia was fourth with Hawaiians first, second and third.
From the time the King of Sweden presented him with his Olympic gold medal and wreath of olive branches in 1912, the Duke has been an international idol, the first and foremost in a long line of Hawaiian world record holders, national and Olympic champions. These tiny islands dominated world swimming from 1912 until 1956 when the six Hawaiians on the U.S. Olympic team were no match for the Australians. Swimming had gone full cycle for it was the Australians who had been dominant in swimming when Duke swam past them in 1912.
Mariechen Wehselau (USA)
Honor Pioneer Swimmer (1989)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1924 gold (400m freestyle relay), silver (100m freestyle); WORLD RECORDS: (100yd, 100m freestyle; 400m freestyle relay); Hawaii’s first woman Olympic gold medalist.
Mariechen Wehselau became Hawaii’s first woman Olympic gold medalist by swimming anchor on the USA winning 400 meter freestyle relay team at the 1924 Paris Olympics. She was 18 years old and never had been out of the territory of Hawaii before she traveled to the tryouts in New York. It was the year that nine Hawaiian swimmers made the team…eight men and Mariechen.
On board the SS America, during the voyage from New York to Paris, Mariechen remembers training in the little canvas pool below deck. She wore a harness suspended from a cable so the swimmers would swim in place, a not very elegant way to stay in peak condition. But it was enough to enable her to set the world record in the Olympic 100 meter freestyle semi-final, take the silver medal the following day in the finals, and anchor the gold-medal winning freestyle relay team for the USA (she had already set the world record for the 100 yard freestyle the year before). Teammates Euphrasia Donnelly and Hall of Famers Ethel Lackie and Gertrude Ederle joined Mariechen in setting a new Olympic and world record in this event.
After Paris, Mariechen was invited by the Australian Swimming Association to compete in their championships and perform in various exhibitions. She and Mrs. E. Fullard Leo traveled to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and many small towns where Mariechen won every head-to-head race, except one which was an impossible handicap.
From 1928 to 1937, Mariechen helped her coach, Dad Center, train the younger swimmers. She had retired from active competition leaving her mark in US and International swimming.
Ellen Fullard-Leo (USA)
Honor Contributor (1974)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: Organized first women’s swim clubs in Capetown, South Africa; Victoria, British Columbia; and Honolulu, Hawaii; started the Royal Life Saving Course; Representative to 1921 AAU Executive Committee (first women delegate); In 1921 helped launch the U.S. Olympic Association; Manager-Chaperone for swimming trips to Australia, Olympics and Nationals, raising money for the athletes to attend.
“Ma Leo” was the grand dame of Hawaiian swimming for more than half of her 90 years. She was not a “women’s libber” but it could have come naturally. Born in Capetown, South Africa, she was the youngest of 19 children (17 were brothers). “I had to fight for women’s rights,” she said, “just to hold my own at the breakfast table.” There were also 11 step-children so “Ma Leo” also came naturally by her success in handling large fractious groups of energetic children, something she did so well and for so long in amateur athletics as the primary organizing authority in Hawaiian AAU.
Still in Capetown, she married Leslie Fullard-Leo in 1908. They moved to New York, “Mother City” of the AAU in 1909, then on to Victoria, British Columbia in 1912. In 1915, on her way to Australia she visited Honolulu and decided to stay. In all three places, Capetown, Victoria and Honolulu, she organized their first women’s swim clubs and started the Royal Life Saving Course. The Fullard-Leos bought a home site on Waikiki from Prince Kuhio. “Ma Leo” introduced Royal Life Saving Classes to the Islands in 1917. With their great Nui Lani, it was natural for the Hawaiians to take to leadership from females, so Ellen Fullard-Leo was elected their representative to the 1921 AAU Executive Committee meetings in Chicago. She sent in her credentials and they were accepted. The only problem was that on arrival the delegate bearing the name E. B. Fullard-Leo turned out to be a woman, the first woman delegate in AAU Convention history. “One man grumbled that he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to smoke during the meetings. I put him at rest by explaining I was used to my husband’s pipe and tobacco.”
In that same year (1921) she helped launch the U.S. Olympic Association. In 1922, the Fullard-Leo’s had their Mid-Pacific Palmyra Island annexed to her adopted country the United States. The island was an important Naval Station in World War II.
Whether marching in Olympic parades, organizing the first women’s swim clubs in South Africa, Canada and Hawaii, or organizing the Pan Pacific Games and the Hawaiian AAU, “Ma Leo” has been a prime force in Amateur Athletics for 65 years. Her oldest of three sons, under the stage name Leslie Vincent, played featured and supporting roles in more than 100 Hollywood movies before returning to Honolulu to manage and develop the Fullard-Leo holdings.
Mrs. E. Fullard-Leo got involved in amateur athletics “because her husband was a great athlete and not because she was a tomboy,” says Hal Wood, sports Editor of the Honolulu Advertiser. “I grew up in the Victorian age when it was considered vulgar for young ladies to compete in athletics,” she once told him. “So of course I didn’t compete, although I knew how to swim.” “Ma Leo” never limited her interests to swimming. It followed that she was the manager-chaperone for swimming trips to Australia, various Olympics and Nationals on the mainland. It cost money to send Hawaiian athletes to Nationals in New York and Chicago, so she raised the money. She also raised the money for the Hawaiian lava waterfall in the entrance-way at the International Hall of Fame where she was one of the first individual Charter members. After she died in October, 1974 her ashes were spread from a surfboard off Waikiki in an ancient Hawaiian burial. No mermaid Haole ever deserved the honor more.
Warren Kealoha (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1968)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1920 gold (100m backstroke); 1924 gold (100m backstroke); NATIONAL AAU CHAMPIONSHIPS: 2 gold (50 freestyle); Backstroke world record holder and national champion for 6 years.
Hawaiian Olympic swimming is a study in brotherhood — the Kahanamoku brothers, the Kealoha brothers and the Kalili brothers. The Kahanamoku brothers, Duke and Sam, were second and third to Johnny Weissmuller in the 1924 Olympic 100 meter freestyle after Duke had won in 1912 and 1920. The Kalili brothers, Mailola and Manuella, were on the silver medal 800 meter freestyle relay team in 1932. The Kealoha brothers, Pua and Warren, won gold medals in the 800 freestyle relay (Pua) with The Duke; and the 100 meter backstroke (Warren) in the 1920 Olympics.
Warren Kealoha, the baby of the 1920 team, was 16 when he won his first Olympic backstroke crown. He came back to win again in 1924 as the Olympics first double winner in any stroke other than freestyle.
Warren Kealoha, like his brother, was a USA champion freestyler, twice winning the National AAU 50 freestyle gold medal, but he was supreme for 6 years as backstroke world record holder and national champion.
“It wasn’t easy for Hawaiians to get to the Olympics back in those days,” Warren says, “or I might have had a chance at my third Olympics in 1928.” Warren Kealoha had more trouble getting to his races than winning them. “We had to break a world record before they could afford to send us to the Mainland,” he says, “then when we arrived by boat and out of shape, we had to beat all comers on the West coast, again in Chicago, and again in New York before we finally made the Olympic team.” Warren joins the late Duke Kahanamoku, Bill Smith, Buster Crabbe and coach Soichi Sakamoto as Hawaiian swimmers in the Hall of Fame. Now a successful rancher, Kealoha represents an amazing heritage of Island swimming which dominated the world for 50 years. The list, beginning with coach “Dad” Center and ending with diver Keala O’Sullivan, including Sargent Kahanamoku, Keo and Bunny Nakama, Douglas and Jerry Miki, Bill Woolsey, Allan Stack, Dick Cleveland, George Onekea, Sonny Tanabe, Halo Hiroshi, Ford Konno, Oshi Oyakawa, Charlie Oda, Evelyn Kawamoto, Thelma Kalama, Ivalena Hoe, Clarence Lane, Dudley Pratt, Jose Balmores, Kenny and Sammy Nakasone, Walt Richardson, the Honda boys and many others.
There may have been years when the Hawaiian Islands would have won the Olympics without help from the Mainland. It should be an inspiration to island peoples everywhere that swimming championships can become part of the way of life in island recreation.
Soichi Sakamoto (USA)
Honor Coach (1966)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: Great Hawaiian coach who developed many of the world champions between 1948-1956. All of his swimmers became National Champions during this period.
Soichi Sakamoto is the great coach responsible for modern Hawaiian swimming success. Hawaiian swimmers dominated the sport from 1912, but Buster Crabbe, in the 1932 Olympics, was their last champion of that long illustrious era.
Then came a drought and Japanese-Hawaiian Sakamoto, starting with children in an irrigation ditch, was developing new ideas of pace and rhythm with a metronome. His young swimmers were not the greats of Punaho School, then and still going on to Yale, but a new breed of public school swimmers going on to Ohio State and Indiana–Hirose, Nakama, Smith, Konno, Oyakawa, Onekea, Cleveland, Woolsey, Tanabe, Miki and the girls Kalama Kleinschmidt, Kawamoto and Hoe. All became national champions, most made the Olympic teams of 1948, 1952 and 1956.
During this period, Sakamoto was sought out by swimmers all over the world, journeying to Hawaii in search of the magic touch. They found technique, method dedication and conditioning, which produced champions at all strokes and distances, but as the coach told all in his somewhat difficult-to-understand English, “Magic, No!”
“The swimming stroke is a ‘working tool’,” says this master coach, “and therefore it must be one which must be sound in its practical use–to get the most out of a given effort. It must be simple and efficient, and one which can be controlled at will by the individual. . . Swimming with and not against the water.”
“Patience, above all, is tantamount and a rule,” Sakamoto continues, “as improvement, growth, speed and success come only at a snail’s pace. First, it is learning to swim, training and conditioning, competing and going through the bitter experiences of defeat and chagrin. The light of success comes only when everything seems hopeless and wasted.”
Takashi “Halo” Hirose (USA)
Honor Pioneer Swimmer (2017)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: 1938 NATIONAL AAU MEET: 2ND (200m freestyle); 4TH (100m freestyle); 1939 NATIONAL AAU: 4TH (100m freestyle); 1940 NATIONAL AAU: 2ND (100m freestyle); 1941 NATIONAL AAU: 1ST (100m freestyle, 800m freestyle relay); 1940-44 MEMBER OF THE MYTHICAL OLYMPIC TEAM, WHICH WAS NOT ABLE TO COMPETE DUE TO THE WAR; 1946 BIG TEN: 1ST (100yd freestyle), NCAA: 1ST (100yd freestyle), OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: WON BIG TEN, NCAA AND AAU TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS, 3 TIME ALL-AMERICAN; 1987: INDUCTED INTO OHIO STATE’S SPORTS HALL OF FAME
He learned to swim in the irrigation ditches of Maui’s Pu’unene’s sugar plantation, where his parents worked as laborers. Watching over him and the other kids was Soichi Sakamoto, one of their elementary school teachers.
Sakamoto knew nothing about swimming, but in time, he would come to be regarded as a coaching genius. In 1937, he dared to dream that some of his “ditch kids” could represent the USA, in the home of their ancestors, at the 1940 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Just one year after “coach” started his “Three Year Swim Club”, 15 year-old Takeshi “Halo” Hirose placed second in the 200m freestyle at the US Nationals, finishing just inches behind the great Adolph Kiefer. This earned him a spot on the US team that toured Europe and the distinction of being the first AJA (American Japanese Asian) to represent the USA in international competition.
During the tour, Halo became the first AJA to set a world record, as a member of the USA’s 4x100m freestyle relay team, at a meet in Germany.
At the 1939 Nationals, Halo was selected along with Maui teammate Keo Nakama for the US team that participated in the Torneo Panamericano de Nation in Guayaquil, Equador – a forerunner of the Pan American Games. Shortly before that meet, in the face of an international boycott, the Japanese Olympic Committee announced it was giving up the Games for financial reasons, owing to its costly war with China. While Finland was an eager replacement, the outbreak of WWII dashed Halo’s Olympic dreams. It was little consolation that he, along with his Maui teammates, Keo Nakama and Fujiko Katsutani were selected for the USA’s “mythical” 1940 Olympic Team.
After he won the US National 100m title in 1941, came Pearl Harbor, and once Japanese Americans were permitted, he volunteered to fight in Europe as a member of the 442nd “Nisei” Regimental Combat Team. On the battlefield he gained almost as many honors as he had in swimming events in Hawaii, the USA, South America, Germany, Austria and Hungary. A member of a machine gun platoon through some of the heaviest fighting in France and Italy, Hirose received five battle stars, the combat infantry badge and a Presidential Unit Citation. In November of 1944, he contracted “trench foot” during deployment in France and was paralyzed from the hips down. It was feared that he might lose his feet. Although he recovered the use of his legs after six months in rehabilitation, he would feel the effects of “trench foot” for the remainder of his life.
After the war, Hirose followed his Maui teammate, Keo Nakama to the Ohio State University where he became a three-time All-American for the Buckeyes. Although he was an NCAA champion in the 100m freestyle and helped Ohio State win the Big Ten, NCAA and AAU team titles, Hirose had been denied his opportunity to swim in the Olympic Games in 1940 and 1944, and his war injuries no doubt affected his chances to make the US team in 1948. The story of Halo resurfaced when author Julie Checkoway published the remarkable story of The Three-Year Swim Club and the men and women who brought national and international acclaim to the island of Hawai’i and the USA.
Classic Throwback Thursday: Six World Record Holders in one Car ~ L to R: Ludy Langer, Charlotte Boyle, Johnny Weissmuller, Norman Ross, Robert L. Pearson, Ethelda Bleibtrey, 1923
All six in this photo are Honorees with the exception of Robert L. Pearson. Read their bios below to learn each of their fascinating stories. The photo was taken in 1923, Johnny was the only one who would go on to swim in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. The others had competed in the 1920 Games.
Ludy Langer
Honor Swimmer (1988)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1920 silver (400m freestyle); WORLD RECORDS: 2 (440yd, 500m freestyle); U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 8 from 1915-1921.
Ludy Langer won a silver medal in the 400 meter freestyle at Antwerp in 1920. He set two world records in the 440 yard and 500 meter freestyle and won eight U.S. National Championships from 1915 through 1921. He held the world record in the quarter mile for five years until he lost it to Hall of Famer Norman Ross, the same Ross who touched him out for the 400 meter gold at Antwerp. Langer was just hitting his stride with a victory in Hawaii over the legendary Duke Kahanamoku, when World War I interrupted his career. He returned to win his last two Nationals in 1921.
Charlotte Boyle (USA)
Honor Pioneer Swimmer (1988)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: WORLD RECORDS: 2 (200m, 220 yd freestyle); U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 8 (50yd to 5 mile long distance). Competed in 1910’s and 1920’s. First great freestyle swimmer of the dominant New York Women’s Swimming Association.
Charlotte Boyle set two world records and won eight U.S. National Championships on both sides of the 1920 Olympics. Charlotte Boyle was the first great freestyler of the dominant New York Women’s Swimming Association and coach L. de B. Handley, the first U.S. scientific swimming coach. Her style and glamour added to a large dose of talent, helped to popularize competitive women’s swimming. She concluded her career with a story book marriage and a long life of service, teaching thousands to swim. Her own competitive career included winning nationals from 50 yards to the five mile national long distance. Her world records were in the 200 meter and 220 yard middle distance events.
Johnny Weissmuller (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1965)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1924 gold (100m, 400m freestyle; 4x200m freestyle relay), bronze (water polo); 1928 gold (100m freestyle; 4x200m freestyle relay); WORLD RECORDS: 51; U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 52; Played Tarzan in 16 movies.
Johnny Weissmuller holds no current world swimming records and by today’s Olympic standards, you might say he never swam very fast, but you can’t get anyone who ever saw him swim say that there ever was a greater swimmer. This was the verdict of 250 sportswriters at A.P.’s mid-century poll and it is still the verdict 15 years later.
He was the swim great of the 1920’s Golden Age of Sports, yet because of the movies and TV, he is as much a part of the scene in the 1960s as he was in the 1920s when his name was coupled with sports immortals such as Babe Ruth, Bill Tilden, Bobby Jones, Jack Dempsey and Red Grange. He is the only one of this group more famous today than in the “Golden Age.”
Weissmuller set many world records and won 5 gold medals in two Olympics (1924 and 1928). He never lost a race in 10 years of amateur swimming in distances from 50 yards to 1/2 mile. Johnny’s 51 seconds 100 yard freestyle record set June 5, 1927, in the University of Michigan Union Pool stood for 17 years until it was broken by Alan Ford at Yale in 1944. The 100 yd. distance is swum more often than any other, yet in 17 years, only one man ever swam it faster. That man was Johnny Weissmuller, who later, as a professional in the Billy Rose World’s Fair Aquacade swam 48.5 at the New York Athletic Club while training Walter Spence to win the nationals. For those who think swimmers must be teenage bobby-soxers, it might be of interest to note that Spence was 35 at the time and Weissmuller was 36.
His record of 52 national championship gold medals should stand forever. He is famous for his chest high crawl stroke seen by millions in Olympic swim stadiums, on movie screens and on TV, but he also held world records in the backstroke and never lost a race in that stroke. “I got bored,” says Johnny, “so I swam on my back where I could spend more time looking around.” Weissmuller set 51 world records in his ten years as an amateur but many more times he broke world records and never turned in the record applications. Every time he swam, the crowd expected a new record, so Johnny learned pace. He learned how to shave his records a tenth of a second at a time. If he missed, his 350 lb. coach Bill Bachrach would say “rest a few minutes, Johnny, and we’ll swim again.” Bachrach would promise his protégé a dinner if he broke the record and Johnny always seemed to be hungry. Many a world mark was set with only a couple of visiting coaches or a few guests of the Illinois Athletic Club to watch.
Every old-timer in swimming has a favorite Johnny Weissmuller story. To them all, he was the world’s greatest swimmer, yet ironically the producer who signed him to play Tarzan didn’t know Johnny could swim. “Many think I turned pro to go into the movies,” Johnny says, “but this is not true. I was working for a bathing suit company for $500 a week for five years, which was not bad money then (or now). I was in Los Angeles and they asked me if I would like to screen test for Tarzan. I told them ‘no thanks’ but they said I could go to the MGM lot and meet Greta Garbo and have lunch with Clark Gable. Any kid would want to do that so I said ‘okay’. I had to climb a tree and then run past the camera carrying a girl. There were 150 actors trying for the part, so after lunch, I took off for Oregon on my next stop for the swim suit outfit. Somebody called me on the phone and said ‘Johnny, you got it.’ ‘Got what?’ ‘You’re Tarzan.’ ‘What happened to those other 150 guys?’ ‘They picked you.’”
“So the producer asked me my name and he said it would never go. ‘We’ll have to shorten it,’ he said. ‘Weissmuller is to long. It will never go on a marquee.’ The director butted in. ‘Don’t you ever read the papers?’ he asked the producer. ‘This guy is the world’s greatest swimmer.’ The producer said he only read the trade papers, but okay, I could keep my name and he told the writers, ‘put a lot of swimming in the movie, because this guy can swim.’”
“So you see why I owe everything to swimming,” Weissmuller says. “It not only made my name, it saved my name. Without swimming, I’d be a nobody. Who ever heard of Jon Weis, marquee or no marquee.”
Besides swimming, Johnny Weissmuller played on two U.S. Olympic water polo teams. “Water polo’s a rough game,” Johnny says. “We never could beat those Yugoslavians. They never blow a whistle over there. Anyhow, that’s where I learned to duck. It came in handy when Cheetah started throwing coconuts.”
Norman Ross (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1967)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1920 gold (400m, 1500m freestyle; 4x200m freestyle relay), 4th (100m freestyle); WORLD RECORDS: 13; U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 18
Not to be outdone by either Cann or Furuhashi, Norman Ross was decorated by General Pershing in world War I., served as aide to Gen. Doolittle in World War II.
In swimming, this great hulk of a man (6 ft. 2 in.–210 lbs.) held 13 FINA world records, won 18 U.S. National championships, held a total of 72 world, national and central U.S. records. He was the first non “trudgen” middle distance freestyler, using a scissor kick, 2 minors and a major as he turned to breathe (very similar to Roy Saari’s kick 40 years later). Ross dominated both the 1919 Allied War Games with 5 firsts and the 1920 Olympics where he won 3 gold medals in the 400 meter freestyle, 1500 meter freestyle and as part of the USA’s 800 meter freestyle relay. He worked out on the end of a rope in a canvas tank on shipboard.
As with most great swimmers of his era, Norman Ross wrangled a trip to Hawaii, but unlike the others, he returned with a Hawaiian Princess as his bride.
Ross certainly qualifies as one of the world’s all-time great swimmers, but it is as a showman and leader of swimmers that he is best remembered. A master of “psyching” other swimmers, he also psyched the Olympic officials by calling a strike which the Olympic athletes won for a better ship home than the “cattle boat we went over on.”
A few years later, after he had briefly coached the Detroit Athletic Club, Ross was back in Chicago and decided to try the Wrigley Marathon from Catalina Island to the California mainland. He was training in Lake Michigan and took a short training swim from the Lee Street Beach in neighboring Evanston to the first beach on Chicago’s north side. Naturally all sunbathers were watching the head bobbing in the waves way out on the lake. Norman Ross, never one to disappoint a crowd swam into where he could stand in the water chest deep. “Is this Milwaukee?” he boomed. “No,” said the sunbathers, “It’s Chicago.” “Nuts!” said Ross, slapping the water, “I must have missed my turn!”, after which he dove back in and began swimming north.
After retirement from swimming, Norman Ross went into the music business and broke more records as this country’s first classical disc jockey.
Receiving the award is Norman Ross, Jr., who, like his late father, is a familiar voice on Chicago radio and television.
Ethelda Bleibtrey (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1967)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1920 gold (100m, 300m freestyle; 4x100m freestyle relay); WORLD RECORDS: freestyle, backstroke; NATIONAL AAU CHAMPIONSHIPS: between 1920 and 1922 won every national championship from 50yd to 1 mile; turned professional in 1922 after an undefeated amateur career.
Ethelda Bleibtrey was the USA’s first female Olympic swimming champion and the only person ever to win all the women’s swimming events at any Olympic Games. She took up competitive swimming for the first time in 1918, won the nationals within a year, and was the best in the world by the end of the second year (1920 Olympics).
Miss Bleibtrey won 3 gold medals in the Games at Antwerp and says only fate kept her from being swimming’s first 4 gold medal winner in one Olympic Game, an honor Hall of Famer Don Schollander accomplished 44 years later in Tokyo. “At that time,” she says, “I was the world record holder in backstroke but they didn’t have women’s backstroke, only freestyle in those Olympics.”
For her world and Olympic records in the 100 and 300 meter freestyle and anchor leg of the winning U.S. 400 freestyle relay, Ethelda was congratulated by King Albert of Belgium. She later surfed with the Prince of Wales in Hawaii, dated oarsman Jack Kelly in Atlantic City, and triumphantly toured the Panama Canal, Australia and New Zealand. The invitation down under came when she was the first girl ever to beat Hall of Famer Fanny Durack, the long-time Australian multi-world record holder on Fanny’s U.S. tour in 1919.
Miss Bleibtrey had several other firsts for which she got citations but no medals. Her first citation was for “nude swimming” at Manhattan Beach. She removed her stockings before going in to swim. This was considered nudity in 1919. Resulting publicity and public opinion swinging in her favor not only emancipated Ethelda from jail, but women’s swimming from stockings. On her trip to Australia with Charlotte Boyle the misses Bleibtrey and Boyle were the second and third famous women to bob their hair — something Irene Castle had just introduced. Charlotte’s parents told them not to come home until it grew out (citation #2), for which they were reprieved when the ship landed and the Boyle’s decided it didn’t look as bad as they had feared. Citation #3 got Ethelda arrested in Central Park and paddy-wagonned down to the New York police station for a night in jail but it also got New York its first big swimming pool in Central Park after Mayor Jimmy Walker intervened.
It happened like this: “The New York Daily News” wanted the City to open up its Central Park reservoir for swimming and arranged to have Ethelda arrested while diving in. For this they paid her $1,000.00, money she sorely needed after an abortive attempt to turn pro with a tank tour of the Keith Circuit. Her tank leaked — all over the theater — and Keith’s sued her instead of continuing her promised 14 week tour.
Ethelda Bleibtrey, who started swimming because of polio, and took it up seriously to keep her friend Charlotte Boyle company, turned pro in 1922 after winning every national AAU championship from 50 yards to long distance (1920-1922) in an undefeated amateur career. She also started the U.S. Olympians Association with Jack Kelly, Sr., and later became a successful coach and swimming teacher in New York and Atlantic City. She is currently a practicing nurse in North Palm Beach, Florida — not as young but just as interesting. The sparkle remains in her eyes as she tells how they swam their 1920 Olympic races “in mud and not water,” in a tidal estuary; and how she participated in the first athletic sit-in when Hall of Famer Norman Ross organized the Olympic team to sit it out on the beach in Europe until the U.S. Olympic Committee sent better accommodations for the voyage home. “I have my memories,” says Ethelda, “and I guess some of those other people remember too. I owe a great deal to swimming and to Charlotte Boyle, who got me in swimming and L. deB. Handley, who coached me to the top.”
Happy Birthday Nathalie Schneyder!
Nathalie Schneyder (USA)
Honor Synchronized / Artistic Swimmer (2013)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (team); 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP: gold (team); 1994 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP: gold (team); 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 FINA WORLD CUP: gold (team); 1991 PAN PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (team); 1988, 1992 SWISS OPEN: gold (team); 1991 ROME OPEN: gold (team); 1993 CHINA OPEN: silver (duet); 1994 FRENCH OPEN: gold (team); 1992 U.S. NATIONALS: gold (team), 4th (solo); 1993 U.S. NATIONALS: silver (team), bronze (duet), 5th (solo); 1994 U.S. NATIONALS: silver (team), 4th (duet) 6th (solo); 1995 U.S. NATIONALS: silver (team), bronze (solo).
When Nathalie fell into the swimming pool at the age of four and almost drowned, her mother decided she needed swimming lessons to keep her safe. Within four years, she was competing in synchro as a member of the Walnut Creek Synchronized Swimming Team.
Like in any sport, a number of coaches helped her along the way. Linda Kreiger started her synchronized swimming career; Betty Hazel coached her when she was twelve; Joan Marie Vanaski was her junior team coach who taught her to dance; Hall of Famer Gail Johnson Pucci brought her from the junior team to the club’s “A” team, developing her creativity; Lynn Virglio provided most of the 3,000 to 6,000 yards training before they started synchro training each day; Karen Babb worked tirelessly to get her figures up to par; and Chris Carver, National Team Coach gave her the final touch. But it was Hall of Fame coach Gail Emery who served as her club coach and developed her into the Olympic champion she would become.
As member of the United States National Team for nine years, she and her team rarely missed the top of the podium, winning five FINA World Cups and two FINA World Championships. Winning the 1994 French Open Team Championship in front of her family was special to Nathalie, because her mom and dad had both emigrated from France to the USA. At the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games, Nathalie reached every athlete’ s dream when she helped the USA win the gold medal with a perfect score of “10 “ in the freestyle event. This was the first and only perfect score of “10” in Olympic synchronized swimming history until Russia received the same award in Beijing for their freestyle routine. But for all of her accomplishments in the pool, she is also famous for the perfect pose with teammate Margo Thien that appeared in “Life Magazines” Celebration of the Olympic Body.
Since retiring from the sport, she has coached, been a consultant and choreographed for teams in China, Great Britain, Argentina and the Netherlands, as well as the U.S. Junior National Team and helped Stanford to their first synchronized swimming Collegiate National Championship.
ISHOF Paragon Awards to become ISHOF Aquatic Awards presented by AquaCal
In 1996, the International Swimming Hall of Fame first began looking for a sponsor to partner with for a new annual award we were creating that would celebrate the unsung heroes who make competitive and recreational aquatics possible. The individuals that we would honor, would be the people who save lives, promote water safety and further aquatic education around the world. The idea would be to recognize these important people who are often overlooked, during the ISHOF Honoree Induction Weekend. Paragon was a wonderful partner for many, many years. We could not have asked for a greater relationship, but after 28 years we are parting ways with Paragon / Pentair as the Title sponsor. Paragon / Pentair will stay involved with ISHOF, but in a smaller capacity.
ISHOF has decided to change the name of the event to the “ISHOF Aquatic Awards”, presented by whoever sponsor we choose. This way if it changes year to year, it will be a much easier name change.
So, for the very first time, for the year 2023, ISHOF is proud to present the ISHOF Aquatic Awards presented by AquaCal.
Mike Dooley, President of Team Horner and AquaCal had this to say about AquaCal’s new partnership with ISHOF: “For decades, the International Swimming Hall of Fame has had a program called “Every Child a Swimmer”, which existed largely in obscurity. Created by champions, the program itself was in need of champions to fulfill its “Spiritual Mission” of teaching children to swim. AquaCal, a subsidiary of The Team Horner Group, in collaboration with the Professional Swimming Pool Industry, The Bill Kent Family Foundation, the World of Aquatics professionals, and State Government Officials, is working to support the International Swimming Hall of Fame’s “Spiritual Mission” of teaching every child to be a swimmer. “In addition to our efforts with the Every Child A Swimmer mission, we are extremely proud to be newly partnered with ISHOF in recognizing this stellar group of individuals who are the recipients of the 2023 ISHOF Aquatic Awards, presented by AquaCal. “
AquaCal® has been the leading swimming pool heat pump manufacturer since 1981, offering a full range of units to meet any heating need. AquaCal® can maintain anything from small above ground pools up to very large commercial facilities. (Currently heating and chilling the City of Fort Lauderdale’s Aquatic Center pools) The chillers, as well as the heat and cool units, can be used to create cold plunge pools for therapy too. Whatever your pool heating/cooling needs, AquaCal® can help!
The International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) is proud to announce the recipients of this year’s annual ISHOF Aquatic Awards, presented by AquaCal. The ISHOF Aquatic Awards are presented annually to individuals or organizations for outstanding contributions to aquatics. This year’s recipients are Mike Unger for Competitive Swimming; Mark Koganov for Water Polo; Ellie Smart for Diving; Maria Jóse Bilbao Bruñel for Artistic/Synchronized Swimming; Cullen Jones for Water Safety and Sofia Forte for Recreational Swimming. This year’s awards will be held Friday evening September 29, 2023 during the ISHOF Honoree Induction weekend, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
To make hotel reservations,
HOTEL INFORMATION
Host Hotel: Fort Lauderdale Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa
Upscale retreat with private beach access, two pools, four restaurants, full service spa and oceanside bar.¼ mile south of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
3030 Holiday Drive, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316 (954) 525-4000
Special ISHOF Guest Rate of $229 per night, BOOK YOUR ROOM HERE
($39 Resort fee – Guests can opt out if not interested in resort amenities)
Additional Hotel Option: Courtyard by Marriott Fort Lauderdale Beach
440 Seabreeze Blvd., Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316 (954) 524-8733
Special ISHOF Guest Rate of $169-$189 per night
Honoree Ceremony September 29-30, 2023 ~ Last Day to Book: Friday, September 15, 2023
Book your group rate for Honoree Ceremony
Make your plans now to attend the weekend, September 29-30, 2023!
Happy Birthday Adrian Moorhouse
Adrian Moorhouse (GBR)
Honor Swimmer (1999)
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES: 4th (100m breaststroke); 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (100m breaststroke); 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: 8th (100m breaststroke); ONE WORLD RECORD: 100m breaststroke: 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (100m breaststroke); 1982 COMMONWEALTH GAMES: gold (100m breaststroke), silver (4x100m medley relay), bronze (200m breaststroke); 1986 COMMONWEALTH GAMES: gold (200m breaststroke), silver (100m breaststroke, 4x100m medley relay); 1990 COMMONWEALTH GAMES: gold (100m breaststroke), silver (4x100m medley relay); 1981 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (200m breaststroke); 1983 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m breaststroke), silver (100m breaststroke); 1985 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m breaststroke); 1987 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m breaststroke), silver (4x100m medley relay), bronze (200m breaststroke); 1989 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m breaststroke); 1991 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (100m breaststroke); ONE U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP: short course (100y breaststroke); Awarded MBE.
Not since David Wilkie in the 1970’s had Great Britain seen a breaststroker like Adrian Moorhouse. Duncan Goodhew had won the Olympic gold medal in Moscow in 1980, but Moorhouse was equally great in the 100m and 200m races. He was destined to become the world’s best.
It all began in Leeds at age 4 when Moorhouse started swimming. However by age 9, he developed bronchial asthma and the doctor’s antidote was “keep swimming and do more of it”. That’s why under the tutelage of Coach Terry Denison at the Leeds Central Swimming Club, Adrian swam his way into the record books.
The 1982 Commonwealth Games at Brisbane were his first major international championships – gold in the 100m breaststroke in front of the Queen, silver in the 4×100 medley relay and bronze in the 200-meter. He won the gold medal in the 200m breaststroke the next year at the European Championships. In 1984 two months before the Olympics, Moorhouse was diagnosed with the German measles and told he had had them for the past three months, explaining the tiredness he had been experiencing. He never really recovered for Los Angeles, finishing a disappointing 4th in the 100m breaststroke. This was a time to heal and with the help of Denison, a time to re-evaluate his life goals.
At the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Moorhouse was back on track winning the 200m breaststroke and taking silver medals in the 100m breast and 4x100m medley relay. At the 1986 Madrid World Championships, he touched first in the 100m event but was disqualified due to a rule infraction. First in the World, but he didn’t win the prize. He continued: 1987, gold in the 100m breaststroke and medley relay at the European Championships in Strasbourg. It was on to Seoul and the 1988 Olympic Games.
In Seoul, he defeated Karoly Guttler (HUN) and Dimitri Volkov (URS) to win the 100m breaststroke in a time of 1:02.04. He had previously set the world record in 1989 with a time of 1:01.49 breaking Steve Lundquist’s (USA) 5 year old record and equaling it another 2 times on separate occasions. Moorhouse wanted to continue after the Games. At the 1989 European Championships he won gold in the 100m breast and silver two years later in 1991 for a total of 5 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals in a decade of European Championship swimming.
Adrian competed in his third Olympic Games in 1992 earning an 8th place finish in the 100m breaststroke behind Nelson Diebel (USA).
Spanning a phenomenal 14 year swimming career against such greats as Steve Lundquist (USA), Victor Davis (CAN), Karoly Guttler (HUN) and Mike Barrowman (USA), Adrian set the 100m breaststroke record three times. In all he competed in three Olympic Games and won 3 golds, 4 silver and 1 bronze medal in Commonwealth Games competition. He will be remembered as one of the world’s great breaststroke swimmers.