Happy Birthday Tiffany Cohen!!
TIFFANY COHEN (USA) 1996 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (400m and 800m freestyle); 1982 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: bronze (400m freestyle); 1983 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: gold (400m and 800m freestyle); 14 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 400m, 800m 1000yd, 1500m freestyle.
She swam at a time when Tracy Wickham of Australia held all the world records in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyles and most of them for a period of nine and one-half years. But Tiffany Lisa Cohen (TLC for short) was a competitor, and she raced whomever was next to her. Said her coach Mark Schubert, “Tiffany has that great ability to rise to the occasion when the gun goes off.”
Cohen joined the Mission Viejo Swim Team in 1980 and swam her first U.S. Nationals one year later in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, winning the 400m freestyle, the first of fourteen U.S. National Championships in the 400m, 800m 1000m and 1500m freestyle events.
In only her second complete year of competition, she won the bronze medal in the 400m freestyle behind GDR swimmers Carmela Schmidt and Petra Schneider at the 1982 World Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The following year her international competitions were at the Caracas Pan American Games where she won gold medals in the 400m and 800m freestyles and the Pan Pacific Championships where she again won the 400m and 800m freestyles.
Tiffany likes to be the leader both in and out of the water. She sets a good example and has a good attitude about competing in sport and life. She enjoys helping people and has that burning desire to succeed.
So when the Olympic Games of 1984 came, she was ready to take on the world and particularly East Germany’s Astrid Strauss who narrowly defeated Tiffany earlier in the year at the U.S. Swimming International. But the head to head competition was not to happen as the GDR boycotted the Games. Tiffany swam to an American record by winning the 400m freestyle and an Olympic record by winning the 800m freestyle, only 33 one-hundredths of a second short of Hall of Famer Tracy Wickham’s world record. It was an Olympic performance of which to be proud.
Following the Olympics of Los Angeles, Tiffany continued to compete and win, helping her Mission Viejo team on its way to a record number of national championships. She attended the University of Texas, winning five NCAA National titles for her team and coach Richard Quick. Said Quick of Cohen, “Tiffany has the mark of a champion. Just to swim well isn’t enough. She doesn’t like losing.”
In 1987, Tiffany retired from competitive swimming to battle bulimia, an eating disorder. She has embarked on a campaign to educate the public about the perils of eating disorders. She and her husband Bill are expecting their first child, and she will continue her lecturing career and concentrate on being a full-time mom. That’s Tiffany – focused both in and out of the water.
Happy Birthday Megan Neyer!!
MEGAN NEYER (USA)
Honor Diver
FOR THE RECORD: 1980 OLYMPIC GAMES: boycott; 1982 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (springboard); 1983 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 4th (platform); USA INTERNATIONAL DIVING MEET: 1980 – bronze (3m springboard), silver (platform), 1981 – gold (3m springboard), silver (platform), 1982, 1986, 1988 – gold (1m springboard); 1981 FINA CUP: silver (3m springboard); 15 US NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 8 indoor (1m, 3m springboard), 7 outdoor (1m, 3m springboard); EIGHT NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: (1m, 3m springboard).
As a relative unknown, this young diver burst into the international spotlight at the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials when she placed first in both the 3m springboard and 10m platform events, knowing full well that the U.S. team would not compete in Moscow at the boycotted Games. She used one of the world’s hardest lists in women’s diving with a total degree of difficulty at 22.8, matched only by USA’s Chris Seufert and 1980 Olympic Champion, Irina Kalanina of the Soviet Union. She captured the top spot in platform and springboard diving, becoming only the third person in U.S. History and the first person in two decades to accomplish the double win at a U.S. Olympic Trials, following Hall of Fame divers Pat McCormick (1952 & 1956) and Paula Jean Myers Pope (1960).
Raised in Ashland, Kentucky, Megan moved to Mission Viejo, California to continue her diving with Hall of Famer, Coach Ron O’Brien at the Nadadores. Ron helped to guide her through a decade of diving competition that saw her become the best female diver in the world.
Her success has been her consistency of success. Over a ten year period from 1978 to 1988, she won numerous U.S. National Championships, NCAA Championships, a World championship and other major international competitions.
Unable to compete at the Moscow Olympics, Neyer traveled with the U.S. Team for a dual meet with the National Team of China. She won silver in the springboard as well as at the FINA Cup and the FISU Games at Bucharest, Romaine. While a freshman at the University of Florida, she won both the 1m and 3m springboard NCAA Championship, the first of four years, setting an NCAA Record of eight individual diving championships within a four year period. This record still stands today. Because of her enormous springboard successes, Swimming World magazine voted her the 1981 Springboard Female World Diver of the Year.
At the Guayaquil World Championships in 1982, Megan became the best in the world again, winning the gold medal in the 3m springboard. She won the USA International as the only non-Chinese winner in the four combined women’s and men’s events and two points over Canada’s Hall of Famer, Sylvie Bernier. She also won both U.S. National Championships, the Australia Day International Meet and a Mission Viejo vs. Mexico dual meet. Again Swimming World selected her as the Springboard Female World Diver of the Year, 1982.
Blonde hair, 5 foot 2, eyes of blue, Megan Neyer was the envy of everyone. But in 1984, she failed to qualify for the 1984 U.S. Olympic Team. She was crushed and took a rest from diving for a year and one-half. It would be a time to heal an injured shoulder, spend time with her family after the death of her father, and to release the pressure cooker feeling around which she had put herself.
Upon returning, she immediately went right back to winning: two National Championships in 1986 and 1987. Surgery performed on her bad shoulder kept her from making the 1988 Olympic team, but she did win another National Championship in the 1m springboard competition.
Megan Neyer will be remembered as a pillar of consistency throughout her long career. She won a total of 15 U.S. National Championships, and while maintaining a 3.5 grade point average in psychology at the University of Florida, she became the all-time winningest collegiate diver in the history of swimming and diving, both male and female. “I thrive on the individualized nature of diving. I’m a performer and I know that,” said Megan. With her advanced degree in the counseling field, Dr. Megan Neyer is the Director of Performance and Wellness Counseling at the Homer Rice Center for Sports Performance at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.