Happy Birthday Xiong Ni!!
Xiong Ni (CHN)
Honor Diver (2006)
FOR THE RECORD: 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (10m platform); 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: bronze (10m platform); 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (3m springboard); 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (3m springboard, 3m springboard synchro); 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (10m platform).
Only the great Greg Louganis had won back–to–back gold medals in men’s Olympic 3m springboard competition – until Xiong Ni appeared on the international diving scene. In 1996 and 2000, Xiong did what Louganis did in 1984 and 1988 – 3m Springboard Olympic Champion, both times.
2000 was Ni’s fourth Olympic competition. In 1988, as the youngster competing against veteran Louganis in the 10m platform, Xiong won the silver medal by only 1.14 points behind Greg. He vowed to return in 1992, but won the bronze medal in the same event. In 1996, he won the gold medal on the springboard and returned four years later to win it again. He and his synchronized diving partner Xiao Hailiang also won the gold medal in the 3m Springboard Synchronized Diving. He and Klaus Dibiasi are the only two men to win diving medals in four Olympic Games.
Xiong began diving training coached by Mr. Ma Yannian in Hunan Spare – Time Sports School in 1982 and joined the Hunan provincial diving team in 1983. He first caught the attention of Xu Yiming, the Head Coach of the China National Diving Team and intensified training began.Within his 15 year career, Xiong won five Olympic, one World Championship and two Asian Games medals as well as 16 Chinese National Championships.
Happy Birthday Tracy Caulkins!!
Tracy Caulkins (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1990)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1984 gold (200m, 400m individual medley; relay); 1980: member of U.S. Olympic Team; WORLD RECORDS: 5 (200m, 400m individual medley; 200m butterfly; relay); WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1978 gold (200m butterfly; 200m, 400m individual medley; 2 relays), silver (100m breaststroke); 1982 bronze (200m, 400m individual medley); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1979 gold (200m, 400m individual medley; 2 relays), silver (100m breaststroke; 400m freestyle); 1983 gold (200m, 400m individual medley), silver (200m butterfly); U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 48 (200m butterfly; 200yd, 200m, 400yd, 400m individual medley; 500yd freestyle; 200yd backstroke; 100yd, 100m, 200yd, 200m breaststroke; relays); AMERICAN RECORDS: 63 (100yd, 500yd freestyle; 100yd, 100m, 200yd, 200m breaststroke; 200yd backstroke; 200yd, 200m, 400yd, 400m individual medley; relays) NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS: 12 (100yd, 200yd butterfly; 100yd, 200yd, 400yd individual medley; 100yd breaststroke); 1978 Sullivan Award; 1982, 1983 Broderick Cup; 1981, 1984 Sportswoman of the Year; 1980, 1981 American Swimmer of the Year.
Tracy Caulkins burst onto the international scene at the 1978 Berlin World Championships with five golds and one silver. In the ensuing years she accumulated more National Championship titles (46) and set more American records (63) than any other swimmer. At 15, Tracy was the youngest recipient of the AAU Sullivan Award given to United State’s finest amateur athlete.
Tracy Caulkins trained with her sister Amy at the Nashville Aquatic Club, a team her parents helped to organize. She was America’s queen of the individual medley for eight years and her versatility was phenomenal. Tracy’s performances from 1971 to 1984 included every stroke and distance at the AAU, USS and NCAA National Championships. She brought further notoriety to her already famous coaches Paul Bergen, Don Talbot, Ron Young and Randy Reese.
Tracy was a standout in the classroom and was the top vote-getter in the College Sports Information Directors Association 1983 and 1984 Academic All-American Teams.
Happy Birthday Karen And Sarah Josephson!!
Karen And Sarah Josephson (USA)
Honor Synchronized / Artistic Swimmer (1997)
FOR THE RECORD: 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (duet); 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (duet); 1986 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (duet, team); 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet, team); 1991 PAN PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet, team); 1983 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: silver (team); 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: gold (duet, team); 1985 FINA WORLD CUP: silver (duet, team); 1987 FINA WORLD CUP: gold (team), silver (duet); 1991 FINA WORLD CUP: gold (duet, team); USSS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (16): 7 (duet), 6 (team), 3 (trio); NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (8): 3 (duet), 2 (team), 3 (trio).
SARAH: 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES: 6th (figures); 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: 3rd (figures); 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: 2nd (figures); 1986 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (solo, figures); 1985 FINA WORLD CUP: silver (solo); USSS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (2): (solo).
KAREN: 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: 4th (figures); 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: 3rd (figures); NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (2): (solo).
They are not the average “Jo’s”, and to their competitors they were “double trouble.” In a sport where timing must be within 1/18 of a second, the career paths of these two synchronized swimmers, like their genes, were identical. They grew and blossomed in a sport where togetherness is everything and where every move must be made as if you are one. Identical twins Karen and Sarah Josephson made the moves on synchronized swimming, engulfing the world, not only with their athletic timing and skill, but with the style and grace of true champions. They join Margo McGrath and Carol Redmond of the San Francisco Merrionettes as only the second synchronized swimming duet team to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
They started synchronized swimming at age 5, in 1969, in the Girls’ Club of Bristol, Connecticut, their hometown. By 1977, they shifted to the Rocky Hill, Connecticut School of Swimming with coach Sue Bevier, and then, after making the 1980 national team, began training in Hamden, Connecticut (Heronettes) to be with national team coach Linda Lichter. Their careers began to take off. Junior National Champs in 1980, Senior National – 6th place and second to Hall of Famers Tracie Ruiz and Candy Costie at the National Sports Festival in 1981, plus other US Zone and Junior National meets put the Josephson name on the board.
In 1982, while Sarah was winning a team silver medal at the World Championships in Guayaquil, Equador, Karen won the Mallorca Open team silver medal. It was their first year competing on the Ohio State University Synchronized Swimming team where they went on to be undefeated in collegiate competitions and graduate with academic honors in 1985. At the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela, they helped win the team silver medal.
Their sights were set on the 1984 Olympic Games, and the twins never thought of making the team without the other. But with Sarah’s slightly higher score in the figures at the Olympic Trials, she made the team as an alternate to what became the gold medal winning duet team of Ruiz and Costie.
Sarah and Karen are the toughest of competitors towards one another, but they are also the best of friends. “We really don’t mind getting beat as long as one of us wins,” they say. So while Sarah competed in the Los Angeles Games, Karen traveled with a US team to Mallorca, Switzerland and Scandinavia.
“Karen and Sarah are very calm and easy going”, says their mom, Beryl. But at 5′ 4″ and 120 lbs., they are energy-packed machines who can perform a routine with more sharpness, crispness, fluidity, style and synchronization to each other and the music than almost all of their competitors. Following their 1985 graduation from Ohio State (Karen in Genetics, Sarah in Biochemistry) where they helped their team win the National Championships in the 1982, 1983 and 1985, the grads moved to Walnut Creek, California, to train with National Team and Olympic coach Gail Emery. After Tracie’s and Candy’s Olympic gold medal performance in 1984, the “J’s” were ready to step in, as the gold medal pair retired. In 1985, they won the French Invitational and the US Nationals duet, and Sarah won three major solo competitions. At the 1986 Barcelona World Championships, they won silvers in all events, Sarah in the solos. In 1987, they were Pan American champions and FINA world Cup silver medalists. All was in preparation for the 1988 Seoul Olympiad where their eyes were set on defeating Canada’s Michele Cameron and Hall of Famer Carolyn Waldo. They had defeated them in duet competition only once, at the Japan Lotte Cup in 1986. In every other competition, the “J’s” scored higher in the routine but the Canadians won it with better scores in figures. The gold medal was not be for the “J’s” as Waldo and Cameron duet outscored them again in the figures.
They were very happy with the silver medal, but as with every champion, the desire to win the gold medal never diminished, and after a month’s rest they decided to pursue the 1992 Olympic and the gold medal in Barcelona. During the four years between Seoul and Barcelona, they never lost a competition. That included the Pan Pacifics, Goodwill Games, US Nationals, Olympic Festivals, The German, Mallorca and Rome Opens, the US Olympic Trials, and the Perth world Championships where they set the world record for the highest total duet score.
In Barcelona, they lived up to their own and other’s expectations, winning the gold medal in the duet event, the last time the event will be contested in Olympic competition.
The Josephson Twins are the epitome of synchronization. Whether right side up or upside down, they brought imagination, excitement and beauty to synchronized swimming. They achieved what every synchronized simmer aspires to achieve, the coveted Olympic duet gold medal, won by only two competitors every four years. They have received every synchronized swimming award available and other awards in general, including ESPN/Revco’s Co-Collegiate Athletes of the Year (1985) and as AAU Sullivan Award finalists.
Their 22 years in synchronized swimming, 12 of them on the National Team, are an inspiration to every aspiring athlete. It may still be difficult to tell them apart from one another, but it is easy to tell them apart from their competitors.
Happy Birthday Michele Mitchell!!
Michele Mitchell (USA)
Honor Diver (1995)
FOR THE RECORD: 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (10m platform); 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (10m platform); 1985 FINA WORLD CUP: gold (10m platform); 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: gold (10m platform); 9 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS.
Born in Scottsdale, Arizona, Michele Mitchell discovered the sport of diving purely by accident. As a gymnast she often went to the pool after practices to cool off. Former diver Charles “Sparky” Goodrich discovered her twisting and flipping. After a few sessions of diving, she was hooked on the sport.
It wasn’t until some seven years after taking her first dive that she burst onto the US diving scene. Amazingly, Michele placed second just behind the reigning champion, Wendy Wyland, at her first platform national finals. One year after her graduation from the University of Arizona and entrance onto the national scene, this spunky diver surprised her competition once again by winning the Olympic Trials and setting a record while doing it! In the summer of ’84, before a crowd of some 20,000 participants, Michele Mitchell dove off the Olympic platform in Los Angeles to claim a silver medal.
Mitchell continued her winning momentum throughout the 1985-86 seasons. At the World FINA Cup in China, she claimed the world title, defeating her Olympic competitor, Zhou Ji Hong.
Tired from years of relentless training and surgery on her shoulders, Michele struggled to hold on until the 1988 Olympic Trials. And hold on she did! In a three way struggle for the two spots on the Olympic Team, Mitchell’s steadfast determination and grit paid off — she won her second Olympic Trials, going on to the Olympics to win yet another silver medal.
In total, Mitchell won nine US National titles, a Pan American Games gold, a FINA World Cup title and two Olympic silver medals, among numerous international titles. Michele still holds three national records for the highest diving score of 479.4 on the platform, the highest point total of 94.4 for a single dive, as well as the highest total record in the Pan American Games.
Michele has been very active since her retirement. She has assisted the International Swimming Hall of Fame in the coordination of numerous events, acted as a commentator for swimming and diving events including the 1992 Olympics, and has fought the American Gladiators and won!
Michele Mitchell currently lives in Southern Florida where she and husband Jose Rocha (former Olympic diver from Mexico) coach the Atlantic Diving Team, the largest in Florida.
Happy Birthday Vladimir Vasin!!
Vladimir Vasin (URS)
Honor Diver (1991)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1972 gold (3m springboard); EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1970 bronze (3m springboard); First Soviet diver to win an Olympic gold medal.
In 1972, Vladimir Vasin became the first Soviet diver to win a medal in the Olympic Games, capturing the gold medal in the three meter springboard competition. He beat the great Italian diver Georgio Cagnotto by only 2 1/2 points at a time when the Italian duo of Cagnotto and Dibiasi were the divers to beat.
Vasin made his Olympic debut at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, and also competed again in 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics. On the 10 meter platform in Mexico City, he injured his shoulder on the 10th dive, but went on to finish fifth. Between Mexico City and Munich, Vladimir competed internationally, which included a first place finish at the USA International meet in Fort Lauderdale.
Vladimir stayed in diving beyond his competitive days and served as a member of the Technical Diving Committee of FINA, as well as a leader for youth in many Soviet organizations, where he is considered a hero.
Happy Birthday David Theile!!
David Theile (AUS)
Honor Swimmer (1968)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1956 gold (100m backstroke); 1960 gold (100m backstroke), silver (4x100m medley relay); QUEENSLAND and AUSTRALIAN JR. CHAMPION: 1947; AUSTRALIAN SR. CHAMPION; 1955; AUSTRALIAN RECORDS: 1955 (100m backstroke).
Dr. David E. Theile is the only swimmer other than a freestyler to win gold medals in two successive Olympics since World War II. This Australian backstroker won gold medals in both the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games. He is currently lecturer in surgery at the London Hospital (England) after an honors academic record at the University of Queensland and a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons.
Dr. Theile began competitive swimming at 9, was Queensland and Australian Jr. Champion at 16, and began a five-year reign as Sr. Champion in 1955, at 17. When Thiele set the Australian 100 meter backstroke record at 1:07.4 in 1955, he was breaking a 17-year-old record set the year he was born (1:07.8 by Percy Oliver in 1938).
Thiele won the 100 meter backstroke crown at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in world and Olympic record time, 1:02.2. At Rome in 1960, he lowered his Olympic record to 1:01.9 for a second gold medal and was part of the Australian silver medal medley relay.
Currently living in London with his wife and two children, David Theile joins Murray Rose and Dawn Fraser as Australian contemporaries honored in the Hall of Fame. Together with John Devitt, Jon Hendricks, Kevin O’Halloran, Gary Chapman, Lorraine Crapp, Faith Leech, Terry Gathercole, John Monckton, the Konrads Kids and a host of others, the Aussie swimmers of this 1956-’60 period represented a return to the world swimming dominance which Australia maintained at the turn of the century when Barnie Kieran, Freddie Lane and the Cavills were dominating the record books with something called the Australian Crawl
Happy Birthday Carolyn Schuler!!
Carolyn Schuler (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1989)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1960 gold (100m butterfly; relay); WORLD RECORDS: 1 (relay); AAU NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 3 (relay); AMERICAN RECORDS: 4 (100m butterfly; relays).
Carolyn Schuler, winner of two gold medals at the Rome Olympics was simply a case of a girl ready to swim. She had never won an individual National Championship. Often she was fourth in her favorite event, even on her own Berkeley Y Team, a remarkable group of only five girls, who twice won the A.A.U. National Championship. Her only American record was while swimming first on the medley relay in the long course Nationals. Yet she was always up there getting valuable team points and swimming her best times under pressure when team relays were depending on her.
At the 1960 U.S. Olympic Trials, her former teammate Ann Bancroft qualified first in the 100 meter butterfly but in the finals. Carolyn Schuyler beat her for second place by a finger tip and made the team.
Carolyn Wood had won the Olympic Trials and by the time they got to Rome there was still nothing to make Schuler the favorite over Wood. But the unexpected happened. Carolyn Schuler came through, first by winning the heats in an Olympic record qualifying time. Wood was still favored to beat her as were at least two other world class swimmers from the Netherlands & Australia. In a frenzied race the two Carolyns were stroke for stroke when Miss Wood suddenly grabbed the lane line. She had choked, swallowing too much water on the turn. Carolyn Schuler streaked to a meter victory over Marianne Hemmskerk breaking the Olympic record she had set in the heats. Her victory meant that she and not Wood would swim on the medley relay which was old stuff to team swimmer Schuler, who was used to winning on relays. They did and she did in world record time as Schuler again went under her Olympic record time to give Chris Von Saltza a lead after the butterfly leg. For the fourth time she set an American record as part of a 400 meter medley relay.
Her series of personal best times were 1:09.8 in the 100 meter butterfly heats, 1:09.5 in the finals and 1:08.9 in the relay
Throwback Thursday: South African 12-Year-Old WR Setter Karen Muir Was Overlooked Star
by JOHN LOHN – EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
04 January 2024, 03:11am
Throwback Thursday: South African 12-Year-Old WR Setter Karen Muir Was Overlooked Star
On occasion, we highlight athletes from the past who did not receive their proper recognition, due to no fault of their own. In this installment of the series, we examine the career of South African backstroker Karen Muir.
Mexico City should have been her stage. It should have offered her the opportunity for Olympic glory. It should have been the site of Karen Muir’s greatest accomplishment, the one accolade missing from the South African’s Hall of Fame career. Alas, the backstroke sensation could do nothing more than watch.
We’ve written before about the intersection of sports and politics, and the toxic reaction when they are mixed. In the case of Muir, the denial of an Olympic berth was connected to her homeland’s apartheid policies.
From 1964 through 1988, the International Olympic Committee banned South Africa from competing in the Games, due to the South African National Olympic Committee’s refusal to oppose apartheid practices. Among the athletes caught in the controversy was Muir, who was a rising star in the backstroke events.
Although she was not a factor to compete at the 1964 Olympics, the first Games in which South Africa was banned, she would have been a leading medal contender at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. That potential was realized in August 1965 when Muir stunningly set a world record in the 110 yard backstroke—at the mind-boggling age of 12 years, 10 months and 25 days.
Racing at the British National Championships as an international invitee, Muir clocked 1:08.7, a global standard in a swim that was supposed to be an experience-supplying outing. Muir is recognized as the youngest world record holder in history.
“It has been a bit too much, and I still cannot really believe that I am the holder of the world record,” Muir said of her breakthrough performance. “It’s like something out of a fairytale. Everyone has been very kind and wonderful, but I am glad that the fuss is finished. Now all I want to do is to forget all the fuss and get back to my schoolwork.”
If Muir thought the hoopla surrounding her would subside, she was mistaken. The pre-teen world record set by the South African simply launched her into the spotlight, as she maintained a steady presence among the world’s elite for the remainder of the 1960s. Over the course of her career, additional world records arrived in the 100 and 200 meter backstrokes, along with the 110 and 220 yard backstrokes, the latter events still common for the era. More, she set a global mark in the 440 yard individual medley, an effort that was a testament to her multi-stroke talent.
Yet, for as much as Muir could control during training and her competitive forays, she did not have any influence on what took place in sporting offices around the world or on governmental decisions. Consequently, when the 1968 Olympics were held, Muir was missing, her absence a sad footnote in history.
At the time of the Games, she was the world record holder in the 100 and 200 meter backstroke. Obviously, Muir would have challenged for gold in both events, the titles ultimately going to American Kaye Hall (100) and the USA’s Pokey Watson (200). Canadian Elaine Tanner, a friend and rival of Muir’s, was the silver medalist in each race.
In 1969, in what could be deemed as her response to missing the 1968 Olympics, Muir broke Hall’s world record in the 100 backstroke, touching the wall in 1:05.6. The record endured for four years—until it was broken by East Germany’s Ulrike Richter, who was later found to be part of her country’s systematic doping program.
A 1980 inductee to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, Muir set 17 world records before retiring in 1970 at the age of 18. In 2013 at 60, she passed away after a battle with cancer.
“I’m heartbroken,” Tanner said of Muir’s death. “It’s like a piece of me has died, too. She was very quiet, very reserved. That was her nature. She let her performance speak for her.”
Happy Birthday Patty Caretto!!
Patty Caretto (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1987)
FOR THE RECORD: WORLD RECORDS: 7 (800m, 1500m, 800yd, 1650yd freestyle; 1 relay); AAU NATIONALS: 5 (500yd, 1650yd, 1500m freestyle; 1 relay); AMERICAN RECORDS: (800yd, 1650yd, 400m, 1500m freestyle; 1 relay).
Patty Caretto revolutionized women’s swimming with her windmill stroke — a continuous arm turnover and a two beat kick…She was the second youngest, the shortest and the smallest “giant” to set a world record at 13 years old, 98 pounds and 5 feet 1 inch tall. Patty’s specialty was the 1500 meter freestyle (metric mile), a distance swum by women everywhere but in the Olympics.
She went from a national champion and a world record holder in the summer of 1964 to the high point winner at the U.S. Indoor Nationals in the Spring of 1965, but missed the 1964 Olympics in November because she failed in a 400 meter swim-off against three world record holders at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Ironically, again, the only younger world record holder ever was backstroker Karen Muir (12 years old) of South Africa who also missed the 1964 Olympics because her country was banned by the International Olympic Committee. These two world record holders got to meet and swim in the same pool the next winter when Patty and her coach Don Gambril toured South Africa giving clinics and demonstrations in 1965.
This five foot dynamo broke world records eight times in the 1500 and 800 meter freestyle beating several Hall of Famers en route. She was swimming’s “queen of the mile” and held American records from the quarter mile on up. Patty was a swimming workaholic, a role model for her coac
Happy Birthday Charles Silvia!!
Charles Silvia (USA)
Honor Contributor (1976)
FOR THE RECORD: U.S. National Collegiate record holder: 300yd individual medley; College All-American; Captain, Springfield College Swim Team; Multi-sports coach: New Hampton School; Wibraham Academy; New Haven YMCA; Springfield College (from 1937); Assistant Coach: 1956 U.S. Olympic Team; Developed 50 college swim coaches; His swimmers set 14 World Records; President, College Swimming Coaches Association of America; President, Board Chairman, ISHOF; Recipient of Collegiate & Scholastic Swimming Trophy; Honoree in Helms (Citizens Savings) Hall of Fame; Author of Life Saving & Water Safety Today.
Charles “Red” Silvia coached Bill Yorzyk in a 20 yd. pool and brought him from a non-swimmer freshman in college, to a graduate student with Pan-American and Olympic gold medals, 13 World Records in freestyle and butterfly, and US. National AAU Championships in butterfly and individual medley. Yorzyk won the USA’s only 1956 Olympic gold in men’s swimming. In 1973, Davis Hart, another of Sylvia’s swimmers, set the record for the English Channel. In addition to revolutionizing the dolphin-butterfly stroke in the mid-1950s, Sylvia, in the late 40s, was the first to embrace mouth-to-mouth insufflations, the method of choice for artificial respiration. In 1967 Coach Silvia had 37 of his former pupils as college swim coaches, many more as medical doctors. He is a prime example of the multiplication factor in education. He has used swimming as an effective medium for the development of human potential and sent his students out into life with a sense of social responsibility that includes propagating his teaching in every possible environment.