Happy Birthday Agnes Kovacs!!
Agnes Kovacs (HUN)
Honor Swimmer (2014)
FOR THE RECORD: 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: bronze (200m breaststroke); 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (200m breaststroke); 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m breaststroke); 2001 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m breaststroke), bronze (100m breaststroke); 1995 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (4x100m medley), bronze (100m breaststroke); 1997 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 1999 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 2000 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke), silver
(200m breaststroke); 2006 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: bronze (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 1999 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS (25m): silvr (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 2002 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS (25m): bronze (100m breaststroke); two-time EUROPEAN SWIMMER OF THE YEAR: 1997 and 1998; HUNGARIAN SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR: 1997-2000.
Born in Budapest, Agnes Kovacs learned to swim when she was just two and a half years old, and loved the water from the very start. When she was just nine years old, her swimming teacher, Bea Szucs recommended she join the program at the Kőér St. Pool where she made rapid progress. At the age of 13 she had her first success in the Hungarian National Age Group Championships and as a fourteen year old, she won the European Junior Championship in the 100 yard breaststroke. Within days of her fifteenth birthday, she won the Olympic bronze medal in the 200 meter breaststroke in Atlanta, in 1996.
Following in the wake of Hall of Famer Krisztina Egerszegi, Agnes would be named Hungary’s best female swimmer and her country’s Sportswoman of the year for the next four years. Dominating the 200 meter breaststroke in all international competition from 1997 to 2000, she won gold at both the FINA World Championships in 1998, and then the Olympic gold medal, in Sydney, in 2000.
Following her Olympic success, Kovacs won her event again at the 2001 FINA Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, before moving to the United States to attend Arizona State University. When she left ASU in 2005 it was as a fifteen-time All-American, as the schools top senior female athlete, and with a degree in supply chain management.
Returning to Hungary, she rejoined the national team program and was a crowd favorite, winning three medals at the 2006 European Championships in the same pool where she first learned to swim twenty-two years earlier, on Budapest’s historic Margaret Island.
In addition to her Olympic and NCAA success, Agnes won a total of 25 medals at the European Championships, long and short course, and was a 53-time Hungarian National Champion from 1996 through 2007.
For Agnes, the support of her family was key to becoming a top level swimmer. She is currently married and lives with her husband and son in Hungary, where she is a PhD student at the Semmelweis University Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences.
Happy Birthday Pamela Morris!!
Pamela Morris (USA)
Honor Synchronized / Artistic Swimmer (1965)
FOR THE RECORD: U.S. SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING NATIONALS: 1965 Indoor Titles (solo, duet, team); 1965 Outdoor Titles (solo, duet, team).
In the young sport of synchronized swimming so popular in the United States and Canada, the quality and quantity of competition has improved dramatically since the sport began its national competition in 1946, adding solo in 1950. Ruth and Gloria Geduldig of the Chicago Town Club were the first indoor and outdoor duet champions.
June Taylor and Beulah Gundling respectively won the first four indoor and outdoor solo titles, but in the entire 16 years of three way competition, only one girl, Pame Morris of the San Francisco Merionettes has been a triple winner. Pame accomplished this difficult combination of individual and team performance twice, winning solo, duet and team titles (the synchronized swimming hat trick) in both the 1965 indoor and outdoor championships at Houston, Texas and Maumee, Ohio. Pame’s duets teamed with Patty Willard. These two great performers were joined in the winning San Francisco Merionettes team competition by Margo McGrath, Rhea Irvine, Patsy Mical, Carol Redmond, Kathie McBride and Sharon Lawson.
In recognizing the recently retired Pame Morris as an honoree, the Swimming Hall of Fame acknowledges synchronized swimming as a mature sport in the swimming framework of aquatic sports.
Happy Birthday Lillian “Pokey” Watson!!
Lillian “Pokey” Watson (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1984)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1964 gold (freestyle relay); 1968 gold (200m backstroke); WORLD RECORDS: 7 (200m freestyle; 6 relays); AAU NATIONALS Titles: 26 (100m, 200m, 200yd freestyle; 100m, 200m backstroke; 20 relays); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1967 bronze (100m freestyle); AMERICAN RECORDS: 42 (100yd, 100m, 200yd, 500yd, 500m freestyle; 200m backstroke; 29 relays).
“Pokey” Watson swam her way from Minneola, New York to Honolulu, Hawaii with gold medal stop-offs in Tokyo for the 1964 Olympics and Mexico City for the 1968 Games. Between her Olympic gold medals, the omnipotent “Pokey” (who never was pokey in the water) made nine overseas trips with U.S. teams. A freckle-faced prodigy for George Haines at Santa Clara, she won the first of her 22 National Championships at 13 and five years later hung it up to become a coach. Along the way, Pokey set six World Records individually and had a relay leg up on 20- more for a total of 26. Her American records were even more impressive with 13 and 29 relays. Thought of principally as a crawl swimmer who had been at it a long, long time, Pokey and her coach George Haines decided to turn her over and almost unnoticed, she won the 100 backstroke at the 1967 U.S. Outdoor Nationals. It was still a surprise when, abandoning freestyle completely, she won the Olympic gold medal in the 200m Back at Mexico by 2.6 seconds over the reigning world Record holder Elaine Tanner of Canada. Pokey was never a good breaststroker. She took care of this when she married one of the best in June, 1971, and became Mr. Allen Richardson. Her coaching career at U.S.C. was cut short when the Richardsons moved back to Hawaii where Allen set up his medical practice.
Happy Birthday Christine “Kiki” Caron!!
Christine “Kiki” Caron (FRA)
Honor Swimmer (1998)
FOR THE RECORD: 1964 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (l00m backstroke); ONE WORLD RECORD: l00m backstroke; 1966 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (l00m backstroke); 11 EUROPEAN RECORDS: 100m, 200m backstroke; 14 FRENCH NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: l00m & 200m backstroke, l00m & 200m butterfly; 1965 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (l00m backstroke); AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (l00m backstroke); MEXICAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (l00m backstroke); ONE FRENCH NATIONAL RECORD: l00m butterfly.
In 1948, following World War II, sport was reclaiming its importance in the world and the swimming world was awakening to a surge in international female participation. In Europe, Hall of Famer’s Jean Boiteaux and Alex Jany were France’s star swimmers. Born in Paris during this time of resurgence in the sport, little did Christine “Kiki” Caron know that she would grow to become the best backstroke swimmer in the world and compete in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, just 4 Olympiads later.
In fact, over a career in which Caron won 14 French National Championships within a 7 year period, setting both the backstroke and butterfly records of her country in both 100m and 200m distances, Kiki became one of France’s most famous athletes. With film star beauty, vivaciousness and great swimming ability, she was probably the most photographed of all French athletes. At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, she was the glamour girl, the child prodigy and as her coach Suzanne Berlioux would say “a little temperamental.”
On June 14, 1964 in Paris, Kiki had broken the world 100m backstroke record held by USA’s Dona deVarona. The stage was set for an exciting 100m race between record holders Cathy Ferguson and Ginny Duenkel of the USA and Satoko Tanaka of Japan, all competing at the Tokyo Olympics in October of 1964. In one of the closest races in Olympic history Ferguson, Caron and Duenkel all touched one-two-three, within a blink of the eye in the 50m Olympic Pool. It was the first official use of the electronic timing touch pads to determine race results, in Olympic competition and Kiki finished second for the silver medal behind Ferguson. All of these swimmers were within three-tenths of a second of each other. There was no 200m backstroke for women.
But Kiki didn’t stop there. She competed in the U.S. National Championships in 1965 beating Olympic Champion Ferguson. She also won the 100m backstroke National Championships of Australia and Mexico. She was the 1966 European Champion gold medalist in the 100m backstroke and set the 100m and 200m backstroke European records 11 times. Kiki competed in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and was the first European woman to carry her country’s flag in the opening ceremony of an Olympic Games.
Today, Kiki is in the swimming pool public relations business.
Happy Birthday Barbara Krause!!
Barbara Krause (GDR)
Honor Swimmer (1988)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1980 gold (100m, 200m freestyle; 1 relay); WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1975 gold (relay); 1978 gold (100m freestyle), silver (200m freestyle; 2 relays); WORLD RECORDS: 8 (100m, 200m, 400m freestyle; 3 relays); GDR CHAMPIONSHIPS: 11 (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m freestyle); 1978 European Swimmer of the Year.
Barbara Krause was the only woman to beat Kornelia Ender in 1976. Yet she had to watch the Montreal Olympics on television from her bed. She had come down with angina and fever on her seventeenth birthday, one month before the Games.
With Ender still active as the world’s dominant swimmer, Krause’s only world record was in the 400 freestyle. After Ender, (retired however), Krause became the fastest swimmer afloat. She set eight world records in the 100, 200 and 400 meter freestyle relay. Just as she had been the second woman in the world under 56 seconds for the hundred meters (Kornelia was first), Krause became the first woman in the world under 55.
Barbara Krause is a professional photographer in Berlin. “I wanted to see what it was like on the other side of the lens when I retired as a swimmer,” she says. Barbara Krause won three Olympic gold medals in the 1980 Olympics and did not swim the medley relay, so it could have been four. Add two relays in 1976, and it’s interesting to speculate on how three gold medals might actually have been a very possible record-setting six. Suffice it to say she was, for a four year period, the fastest female swimmer in the world and the top dynamo of the Dynamo Sports Club.
As the world searches for secrets of how one small country can dominate women’s swimming, they might check their own children’s gym classes for bad posture. Barbara Krause shares more than one thing in common with Kornelia Ender–both started to swim on pediatrician’s orders–orthopedic swimming for posture faults. As all time world class swimmers, they certainly were no slouches.
Doping Disclaimer: In a German court of law, after this swimmer was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, team officials confessed to administering performance enhancing drugs to this swimmer, who therefore obtained an illegal and unfair advantage over other athletes. For more information, click here.
Happy Birthday Peter Montgomery!!
Peter Montgomery (AUS)
Honor Contributor (2013)
FOR THE RECORD: FINA TECHNICAL WATER POLO COMMITTEE HONORARY SECRETARY: 1984-1992; CHAIRMAN FINA DISCIPLINARY PANEL: 2005-2009; MEMBER FINA DOPING PANEL: 1998-1999; PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD OLYMPIANS ASSOCIATION: 1995-1999; AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE BOARD MEMBER: 1989-Present; AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE VICE PRESIDENT Since 2001; MEMBER INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE ATHLETES COMMISSION; INTERNATIONAL COURT OF ARBITRATION FOR SPORT BOARD MEMBER: 1993-1999; FOUNDER AND MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE OF AUSTRALIAN WATER POLO: 1982-1992; PLAYED OVER 500 INTERNATIONAL WATER POLO MATCHES: 1972-1984; PLAYED ON FOUR OLYMPIC WATER POLO TEAMS: 1972-1984.
He was raised on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, where he played water polo and swam competitively in addition to being a surf lifesaver and junior rugby league player.
As one of Australia’s greatest water polo players, Peter competed in 404 international matches, serving as captain on 167 occasions. He played in the first FINA Water Polo World Cup, four FINA World Championships and in four Olympic Games from Munich in 1972, to Los Angeles in 1984.
Peter Guy Montgomery’s accomplishments were not just in the pool. He has been a solicitor of the New South Wales Supreme Court since 1972 and has been successful as a real estate investor, property developer and public company director for over 35 years. His business success has provided him with the resources to serve the Australian and International Olympic movement ceaselessly since his retirement as a world-class athlete.
He has served Australian Water Polo continuously since 1982 as Treasurer, Vice President and Patron. In 1984, after playing his last Olympic match, Peter was appointed Honorary Secretary of FINA’s Technical Water Polo Committee, a position he held for eight years. In 1985 he was appointed the first Chairman of the Australian Olympic Committee’s Athletes Commission. As a member of the Sydney 2000 bid team, he was instrumental in women’s water polo being added to the Olympic program. In 2001, he was elected Vice President of the AOC, a position he still holds. He was Deputy Chef de Mission for Australia at four successive Olympic Games from 1996 to 2008 and was the first President of the World Olympians Association.
Within the International Olympic Committee he has served in many positions including the Athletes Commission, Olympic Academy Commission, Cultural Sport and Law Commission and Olympic Bid Evaluation Committee. Along with other awards, he has received the Olympic Order bestowed by IOC President Jacques Rogge, the IOC Universality in Sports Award and the University of Sydney’s Aquatic Center is named in his honor.
For over fifty years, Peter has lived the Olympic ideal of developing both his mind and body and giving back to the sport he loves.
Happy Birthday James Gaughran!!
James Gaughran (USA)
Honor Coach (2015)
FOR THE RECORD: 1963 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: ASSITANT WATER POLO COACH; 1973 HISTORIC SWIM TOUR OF CHINA: Head Coach; COACH OF 26 OLYMPIC SWIMMERS WINNING 8 GOLD, 2 SILVER AND 5 BRONZE MEDALS AT NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS; COACH OF 4 OLYMPIC WATER POLO PLAYERS WINNING SILVER AND BRONZE MEDALS; COACH OF 26 WORLD RECORD HOLDERS AND 11 RELAY WORLD RECORD HOLDERS; COACH OF 2 WORLD CHAMPIONS AND 2 WORLD CHAMPIONS RELAY; COACH OF 15 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS AND 4 RELAY NATIONAL CHAMPIONS; COACH OF ONE AIAW NATIONAL CHAMPION (WOMEN); COACH OF STANFORD’S 1963 NCAA NATIONAL WATER POLO CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM; COACH OF STANFORD’S 1967 NCAA SWIMMING NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM; MEMBER 1956 U.S. OLYMPIC WATER POLO TEAM; PAST PRESIDENT OF COLLEGE SWIMMING COACHES ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA; AUTHOR OF ADVANCED SWIMMING (1972); NCAA ALL AMERICA TEAM: 1953,1954; MULTIPLE WINNER WAIKIKI ROUGH WATER SWIM.
He grew up in San Francisco where he was taught to swim by his father at China Beach, in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. At Sequoia High School, in Redwood City, he developed into a champion swimmer and water polo player under coach Clyde Devine, who predicted Jim Gaughran would one day be an Olympian.
Moving on to Stanford University, he excelled as a two-time NCAA All-America Swimmer, first team All-Conference water polo player, and was captain of both teams his senior year. Upon graduation he continued to play water polo for the Olympic Club of San Francisco while attending Stanford’s Law School – and was selected to play for the USA water polo team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.
In 1960 Jim was married to his high school sweetheart Joan, was a father, and had a job as a lawyer in the office of the California Attorney General when he got a call from Stanford’s Athletic Director; his old coach, Tom Haynie, was retiring – Would he consider taking the job?
His decision to leave law and enter coaching was one he’s never regretted. As Stanford’s coach from 1960 to 1980, he has trained 26 Olympic swimmers, who set 26 world records and won eight gold, two silver, and five bronze medals.
He attributes his success to those who have helped him along the way, starting with Clyde Devine and Tom Haynie. Then, from observing the coaching, training techniques, and methods of George Haines, who coached several of his Stanford swimmers at the Santa Clara Swim Club. Even his great coaching rival, Peter Daland at USC – and of course to all the athletes he coached.
In the 1967 season, Stanford tied USC, ending their long string of winning dual meets, but most observers still believed the NCAA Title would belong to either USC or Indiana. But from the first event at East Lansing to the last, Stanford swimmers swam lifetime best performances and broke many NCAA and American records. Stanford’s 800 free relay broke the American record by an unbelievable 8.1 seconds. After the meet, Ohio State’s Hall of Fame Coach, Mike Peppe, called Stanford’s championship performance “the greatest team effort ever!”
Perhaps of greater historical significance than anything he did at Stanford, was his role as head of the delegation for the swimming team trip sponsored by the U.S. State Department to China in 1973. It was the first official State Department sponsored cultural exchange to China since 1949. His leadership and diplomacy in interacting with China’s diplomatic, athletic and political leaders, including Jiang Qing (Madame Mao) has been credited by both the Chinese and American governments with helping to pave the way for the normalization of relations between the nations. In 2013, over 200 former members of China’s national swimming and diving teams attended a Fortieth Anniversary Celebration of that exchange at the Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, to thank Jim and the other members of the US delegation for helping bring China back into the Olympic family of sporting nations and ending the Cultural Revolution.
Adding to the great aquatic tradition of Stanford University, Jim Gaughran becomes the twenty-fifth Cardinal to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Happy Birthday Denis Pankratov!!
Denis Pankratov (RUS)
Honor Swimmer (2004)
FOR THE RECORD: 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: 6th (200m butterfly); 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (100m, 200m butterfly), silver (4x100m medley relay); 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: 7th (200m butterfly); SEVEN WORLD RECORDS: 2-100m butterfly, 1-200m butterfly, 1-50m butterfly (S.C.), 2-100m butterfly (S.C.), 1-200m butterfly (S.C.); 1994 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP: gold (200m butterfly), silver (4x100m medley), bronze (100m butterfly); 1993 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m butterfly, 4x100m medley), silver (100m butterfly); 1995 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 4x100m medley).
On July 4, 1974, in Volgograd, Russia, Denis Pankratov was born. He was to become the greatest butterfly swimmer to swim for his country. He and Volgograd teammate, Evgenyi Sadovyi, both became Olympic champions – Sadovyi in the 200m and 400m freestyle and Pankratov in the 100m and 200m butterfly.
By age 16, in 1990 and again in 1991, Denis won the Junior European Championships in the butterfly. With little international experience, the next year he placed 6th in the final of the 200m butterfly at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics Games. In 1993, at the Sheffield European Championships, Pankratov became more noticed, winning gold medals in the 200m butterfly and 4x100m medley and a silver medal in the 100m butterfly. In European Championship competition, he repeated this performance in the 1995 Vienna Championships, this time winning all three gold medals and breaking Pablo Morales’ nine-year-old 100m butterfly world record with a 52.32. He held the 100m butterfly world record for over two years.
At the 1994 World Championships in Rome, Pankratov swam head-to-head with all the best swimmers of the world. He won the 200m butterfly, placed second in the 4x100m medley and third in the 100m butterfly. This competition established Pankratov’s world dominance in the butterfly and two years later in Atlanta, at the 1996 Olympic Games, he won two gold medals, one each in the 100m and 200m butterfly and a silver medal in the 4x100m medley with his Russian teammates. His 100m butterfly victory was another world record of 52.27, breaking his own record set the previous year.
Pankratov tried for the 2000 Sydney Games and finished 7th in the 200m butterfly. All totaled, he set seven world records – three long course and four short course. His two long course 100m butterfly world records stood for two years until broken in 1997 by Michael Klim (AUS), and his 200m butterfly world record of 1:55.22 lasted five years before broken by Tom Malchow (USA). His short course world records included two in the 100m butterfly and one each in the 50m and 200m butterfly. They were set in 1997, his in-between years of the Atlanta and Sydney Olympic Games.
Denis Pankratov is the only Russian swimmer to win a medal in the 100m butterfly in Olympic competition.
Happy Birthday to Olympic Gold Medalist Mark Lenzi, who would have been 55 today…….
Mark Lenzi (USA)
Honor Diver (2003)
FOR THE RECORD: 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (3m springboard); 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: bronze (3m springboard); 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (1m springboard); 1989, 1991 FINA WORLD CUP: gold (1m springboard-1989, 3m springboard-1991); 1991 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: gold (1m springboard); 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996 ALAMO INTERNATIONAL: 3 bronze, 2 silver (1m, 3m springboard); 1989-1996 INTERNATIONAL INVITATIONALS: 5 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze (1m, 3m springboard) (Alamo Challenge, Australia, New Zealand, Madrid, Rome); 8 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 4-1m springboard, 4-3m springboard.
Mark Lenzi trained to be a high school wrestler in Fredericksburg, Virginia but was so inspired during his last year in high school when watching Greg Louganis win two gold medals in the 1984 Olympic Games he switched to diving. This was a momentous decision for Mark. Even at this late age in his athletic career he became one of the world’s best divers.
Indiana University and Hall of Fame Diving Coach Hobie Billingsley was so thrilled by the potential of this young diver he offered him a scholarship just out of high school, with less than a year’s experience. At five feet-four inches, 160 pounds, Mark Lenzi proved Coach Billingsley to be right. Billingsley groomed Lenzi to winning two NCAA National Championships (1989, 1990) in the one-meter springboard, becoming NCAA Diver of the Year in both of those years. By age 21, in 1989, he made his first U.S. National Team. The next year he graduated from Indiana with a General Studies degree. After graduation he continued diving and preparing for the 1992 Olympic Games. Now coached by Hall of Fame Coach Dick Kimball, Lenzi was the 1991 and 1992 Phillips 66 Diver of the Year. At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Lenzi won the gold medal on the three-meter springboard by a whopping 31 points, defeating China’s Tan Liangde and Russian Dmitri Sautin. He was named the World Springboard Diver of the Year and was an AAU Sullivan Award nominee and finalist.
Following the Barcelona Games, Lenzi retired from competition. In 1994, he earned a private pilot’s license from ComAir Aviation Academy. During a 20-month period he was going through “post-Olympic blues.” When he emerged in 1993, he was determined to make it back into Olympic competition and strive for another Olympic medal. He competed in numerous international competitions in preparation for the Games. At the 1996 U.S. Olympic Diving Trials he qualified second on the three-meter springboard. At the competition in Atlanta he won the bronze medal behind Xiong Ni and Yu Zhoucheng, both of China and all within 15 points of each other.
All totaled, Lenzi won 16 international competitions on one- and three-meter boards in Pan American Games, F.I.N.A. World Cups, Alamo Cups, Australia Invitationals and other competitions. During his career, Lenzi became the first diver to score over 700 points (762.35) on the three-meter springboard for 11 dives, surpassing Greg Louganis’s 1983 world record for the highest ever score. He became the first diver to score over 100 points on a single dive (reverse 3-1/2 tuck) and the first American to complete a forward 4-1/2 somersault in competition. At the 1991 World Championships, he won the silver medal in diving’s new international event, the one-meter springboard.
Happy Birthday Mike Burton!!
Mike Burton (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1977)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1968 gold (400m, 1500m freestyle); 1972 gold (1500m freestyle); WORLD RECORDS: 7; PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1 gold; AMERICAN RECORDS: 16; NATIONAL AAU CHAMPIONSHIPS: 10; NCAA Titles: 5; 1968 “Swimmer of the Year”; First person in Olympic history to win the 1500m freestyle in two Olympics; first man to break 16 minutes for the 1650yd freestyle; First to swim the 800m freestyle below 8:30.
Mike Burton was finished as an athlete at 13 because he tackled a truck with his bicycle. Swimming was all he could do after that and he made the most of his opportunities. At 5’9″, 165 lbs., it was still bicycle versus truck. From September, 1960 to August, 1969, he improved the 1500m record 4 times from 16:41.6 to 16:08.5 and twice set 800m records on the way. “Mr. Machine or perpetual motion”, Burton set examples of hard work hitherto unheard of in practice and specialized in winning meets when he was sick (stomach trouble in World Students Games & Montezuma’s revenge in the Olympics). If Spitz’s 7 gold medals was the greatest performance in Olympic history, Burton’s comeback win in World Record time was the greatest single performance of the 1972 Olympic Games. Married, working and without sufficient training time, he qualified 8th to make the finals at the Olympic Trials, finished 3rd to make the team, and then won the Olympic Games.