Happy Birthday Barbara Dunbar !!!
BARBARA DUNBAR (USA) Honor Masters Swimmer
For this young lady, it all began as an age group swimmer at the age of 12. As part of a military family, she moved from place to place, home to home, resulting in many coaches who gave her a foundation for what was to come later in Master Swimming. Coaches Flip Darr, Jack Simon and Mike Troy at the Coronado Swim Club in California, Shelley Mann and Ed Solitar in Virginia,Tom Haynie and Soichi Sakamoto in Hawaii and at the Punahou School all gave her a base of sound swimming skills. And, for some of her swimming years, she was self-coached, a condition that was to plant the seed for success in her mind as she began to excel in Masters swimming later in life.
You can say it both ways, “Masters Swimming has been good for Barbara Dunbar and Barbara Dunbar has been good for Masters Swimming”. 91 FINA Masters World Records since 1976 authenticate her International prominence in the sport. She has won 24 US Masters Swimming National Championships in Freestyle, Backstroke, Butterfly and Individual Medley events, and has set 156 US Masters National Records. She has won 18 Long Distance Pool National Championships and 3 Open Water National Championships.
She is a hard and intense competitor who has set records in six age groups beginning with the 25-29 group. She has been a USMS All-Star for 9 years and an All-American 32 times, 11 of those in long distance. She is the first woman over age 40 to break 19 minutes in the 1650y free and the first over age 50 to break 20 minutes in the 1500m and 1650y.
First as a Bio Medical Researcher in biology and immunology and now as a full time finance office manager in her husbands firm, Barbara continues to make time for Masters and continues to set records.
She has received the USMS Distinguished Service Award (1977) and has served on numerous committees of the San Diego-Imperial Local Masters Swimming Committee and Board of Directors, and as the San Diego Swim Masters administrator and newsletter editor/publisher. She is a certified Masters official, referee, starter; the works, and still finds time to volunteer tutor in math, science and reading at the local elementary and middle schools.
Barbara is the epitome of what Masters swimmers achieve and of what Masters swimming represents.
Happy Birthday Norbert Rozsa!
Norbert Rozsa (HUN) Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (100m, 200m breaststroke); 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (200m breaststroke); 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: semifinals (200m breaststroke); THREE WORLD RECORDS: 100m breaststroke; 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m breaststroke); silver (200m breaststroke); 1994 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m, 200m breaststroke), bronze 4x100m medley), 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: bronze (200m breaststroke, 4x100m medley); 1991 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m breaststroke), silver (200m breaststroke).
In a country noted for its male individual medley and breaststroke swimmers, Norbert Rozsa was a standout. He won gold medals in each of European Championships, World Championships and Olympic Games.
Norbert was born on February 9, 1972, in Dombovar, Hungary, only a month after John Hencken (USA) won the 200m breaststroke at the Munich Olympics. Little did Rozsa know that in 1996, twenty-four years later, he would be swimming in the same Olympic event in Atlanta and winning the gold medal.
Rozsa started swimming at age eight with Coach Andrea Kecskes and continued with her for six years until, at age fifteen in 1997, began swimming with Hungary’s great individual medley and breaststroke coach, Tamas Szechy. Hall of Famer Tamas Darnyi had been having great success with Szechy when in 1986 he won both the 200m I.M. and 400m I.M. at the Madrid World Championships. Darnyi had also won the same two events at the 1985 and 1987 European Championships. Rozsa wanted to win on the international level, too. He stayed with Coach Szechy for the remainder of his swimming career even though he spent a year (1998-1999) with breaststroke Coach Jozsef Nagy, the Hungarian breaststroke coach living in the United States.
With three years of training, Rozsa entered his first major international competition at the 1991 World Championships in Perth, Australia. Astoundingly, he won the gold medal in the 100m breaststroke beating the current world record holder Adrian Moorehouse (GBR). He tied Moorehouse’s world record in the preliminary heats (1:01.49) and claimed the record again in the finals with a time of 1:01.45.
At the European Championships in Athens later that year, Norbert again beat Adrian Moorehouse in the 100 meter breaststroke to win the gold medal in a close race. In the 200m breaststroke, he lost by only .03 seconds to the former World Record holder Nick Gillingham of Great Britain. With this as a continued confidence builder, Norbert went to Barcelona the next year to compete in the 1992 Olympics winning the silver medal in the 100m and 200m breaststroke events. In the 200m race, Mike Barrowman won the event in world record time, but in winning the silver medal Rozsa had now beat Gillingham, the bronze medalist by .06 seconds. In the 100 meter race, Norbert was only .18 seconds behind gold medalist Nelson Diebel of the USA.
Only 20 years old at the Barcelona Olympics, Norbert decided that he would continue training for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in hopes to win an Olympic gold medal. He elected not to swim in the 1993 European Championships of Sheffield but in 1994 at the Rome World Championship, he swept the breaststroke events, winning gold medals in both the 100m and 200m breaststroke, just edging out teammate Karoly Guttler in the 100m breaststroke and Eric Wunderlich (USA) in the 200m breaststroke. As a member of the 4×100 medley, his country took the bronze medal behind the United States and Soviet Union.
The Rome World Championships set the stage for the Atlanta Olympics. In the Olympic 200m breaststroke race, Mike Barrowman’s world record set in Barcelona was to stand (for a total of ten years), but Norbert was to take the gold medal in a come-from-behind win to beat his teammate Karoly Guttler, silver and Andrei Korneev (RUS) , bronze. Norbert continued training after the Olympic Games and competed in the 1998 World Championships of Perth, winning the bronze medal in the 200m breaststroke behind Kurt Grote (USA) gold and Jean Sarnin (FRA) silver, all within .19 seconds of each other. In the 4x100m medley he aided teammates Attila Czene, Peter Horvath, and Attila Zubor in capturing the bronze medal.
Rozsa competed in the 200m breaststroke at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, but swam only a 2:14.67 in the semifinal; over two seconds slower than his gold medal winning time four years earlier.
All totaled, Norbert had won a gold and two silver Olympic medals, two gold and three bronze World Championship medals, as well as a gold and silver European Championship medal. His three World Records in the 100m breaststroke stood for over two years and solidifies his place as one of the worlds best breaststroke swimmers.
Following retirement from swimming, Norbert enrolled as a student in the University of Physical Education in Budapest. His new sports are now fishing and racing sports cars.
Happy Birthday Craig Wilson !!!
Craig Wilson (USA) Honor Water Polo Player
FOR THE RECORD: 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver; 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver; 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: Fourth; 1982, 1986, 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: team member; 1982, 1984, 1988 and 1990 FINA WORLD CUP: team member; 1991 FINA WORLD CUP: gold; 1981 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: silver; 1983 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: gold; 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: gold; 1991 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: silver; Five U.S. Water Polo National Championships; Voted World’s Top Goal Keeper.
Craig “Willy” Wilson rivals Hall of Famer Zdravko Kovacic (YUG) as one of the greatest goalies to play the game of water polo. He is a three-time Olympian playing in 1984, 1988, and 1992 winning silver medals in 1984 and 1988. From 1981 to 1992, he played in over 211 international tournaments. His six-foot, ten-inch, out- stretched arm length made it very difficult for opponents to score.
Craig was born on February 5, 1957, in Beeville, Texas, but at age four moved with his family to California living in Tujunga for seven years and Davis for eight years. As a kid, he loved any sport where there was a ball or a pool. He first played organized sports with Little League Baseball, playing first base, pitcher and right field and won the league championship. He began organized swimming at age 11, specialized in backstroke, but yearned for a team-oriented sport. He joined the water polo team.
Craig’s water polo career started at age 13 with the Davis Recreational Water Polo Team. There was no league, only games amongst themselves. At Davis High School, he started playing goalie, even wearing braces, and played his way to high school All-American status in 1975. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, he played water polo his junior and senior year, starting as a walk-on, fifth-string goalie and advancing to starting goalie and an NCAA National Championship, beating UCLA in the finals, 12-3. Craig became NCAA first team All-American.
With the end of his collegiate career, Craig envisioned his water polo playing days over, but in 1980, he was invited to join the National Team Training Squad, again as fifth-string goalie. He joined the Industry Hills Aquatic Club Team (1981-1982) and the team won the National Outdoor Club Championships each of the two years. As a member of the National Team, he quickly advanced and for the next 13 years, he played in 19 major tournaments including: 1981 Pan American mini-tournament – 2nd, Edmonton Canada; 1981 World Student Games – 2nd, Bucharest, Romania; 1982 National Sports Festival – 4th, Colorado Springs; 1982 World Championships – 6th, Guayaquil, Ecuador; 1982 Tungsram Cup – 3rd, Budapest, Hungary; 1983 Fina Cup – 4th, Malibu, California; 1983 Pan American Games – 1st, Caracas, Venezuela; 1984 Tungsram Cup – 2nd, Budapest, Hungary; 1984 Olympic Games – 2nd, Los Angeles, USA; 1986 Goodwill Games – 2nd, Moscow, Russia; 1986 World Championships – 4th, Madrid, Spain; 1987 Pan American Games – 1st, Indianapolis, USA; 1987 Fina Cup – 4th, Thessaloniki, Greece; 1988 Olympic Games – 2nd, Seoul, Korea; 1990 Goodwill Games – 5th, Seattle, USA; 1991 World Championships – 4th, Perth, Australia; 1991 Fina Cup – 1st, Barcelona, Spain; 1991 Pan American Games – 2nd, Havana, Cuba; 1992 Olympic Games – 4th, Barcelona, Spain.
The 6 feet 5 inch, 190 pound Wilson, led every major tournament in saves since 1984, the same year he tended goal for the USA silver medal-winning team at the Los Angeles Olympics, where they were a close second behind Yugoslavia. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the USA again won the silver medal behind Yugoslavia. Wilson led the tournament with 68 saves, 10 saves ahead of Spain’s Jesus Rollan with 58 saves. U.S. coach Bill Barnett said, “Without Craig, we would have never gone as far as we did. He was our saving grace.” Four years later when finishing his Olympic career at Barcelona in 1992, the USA placed fourth behind Italy, Spain and the Unified Team. But Wilson was credited with an Olympic record, most saves at 88, which translated to a 70% efficiency. Gold medalist, Italy’s Francesco Attolico had a 54% efficiency, silver medalist, Spain’s Jesus Rollen had a 56% efficiency and bronze medalist, Unified’s Evgenyi Sharanov had a 57% efficiency.
Barcelona was the third straight Olympiad that the 35 year old led all goalies in numbers of saves. No other goalie in the sports history is even close to matching this accomplishment. He was selected outstanding goalie at the 1992 French International, Tungsram Cup and Catania Tournament. He was a member of the 1991 World Championship Team competing in Perth, Australia and was also a member of three Pan American Teams winning two gold medals (1983, 1987) and a silver medal (1991). He was voted two times as the World’s Top Goalkeeper. He competed on five FINA World Cup Teams for the U.S. (1982, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1991) winning the gold medal in 1991.
Craig competed for two years in the Italian professional water polo league, signing a contract with Ortegia in Sicily, a division one team that represented the seaside town of Siragusa, the islands oldest settlement started by the Greeks more than 2000 years ago. He was only the second American player signed to play in Italy and the first defensive player signed. Each weekly match drew 10,000 spectators usually with radio and television coverage.
As team goalie, Craig was a field leader, coach and wasn’t afraid to take risks. He thrived on the responsibility of having a direct impact on the outcome of the game. Craig is also the author of The Guide to Water Polo Goalkeeping, an illustrated booklet for water polo goalies.
Happy Birthday Sharon Finneran !!! February 4th….
SHARON FINNERAN (USA) 1985 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1964 silver (400m individual medley); WORLD RECORDS: 6 (800m freestyle; 200m butterfly; 400m individual medley); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1963 gold (400m freestyle); AAU NATIONALS: 10 (100yd, 200m butterfly; 400yd, 400m individual medley; 500yd, 1650yd freestyle; 1 relay); AMERICAN RECORDS: 8 (200yd, 200m butterfly; 400yd, 400m individual medley; 1500yd, 800m, 880yd freestyle; 1 relay).
Sharon Finneran literally came on the world swimming scene like a typhoon. It was Japan, 1962. Earlier in the summer she had knocked six seconds off Donna deVarona’s World Record from :35 to :29. In Tokyo, Sharon swam the first heat in :27; Donna went :25 in the second heat, and Sharon won the finals in :21. There was a typhoon between the heats and the finals. The finals had to be postponed two days. This was about the only postponement, as the two best friends and teammates took turns knocking each other’s records, leading up to a return trip to Tokyo in 1964. This time it was Donna first and Sharon second, one tenth of a second behind.
The most accomplished of the five swimming Finnerans, Sharon set six World and thirteen American Records, most of them in events regularly contested in the U.S.A. but considered too tough for the Olympic women’s program. These records were in the 500-yard and 1650-yard freestyle, 200 butterfly, and 800 freestyle, both yards and meters. Her best swimming was done in the non-Olympic years of 1962 and 1963, when she won seven of her eleven National titles. She came back strong again after Tokyo in 1964 and 1966, winning four more Nationals and setting two more American Records.
Sharon Finneran has gone on to be a great Masters Champion:”. . . because it makes me feel better to be in shape while raising children.” Her four brothers and sisters were outstanding swimmers, divers and water polo players. Her brother, “perfect dive Mike” also made an Olympic team (’72); he now coaches at South Carolina. The Finnerans — uncles, parents, brothers, sisters, children and husband–return to Fort Lauderdale to be with Sharon at her induction to the Hall of Fame. It was from Fort Lauderdale that Sharon’s mother, Carolyn, went forward–with five kids in a motel room–to conquer the world of Age-Group swimming.
Happy Birthday to our beautiful US Synchronized Swimmer, Tracie Ruiz !!! February 4th
TRACIE RUIZ (USA) 1993 Honor Synchronized Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1984 gold (solo, duet with Candy Costie), 1988 silver (solo); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1979 gold (team), 1983 gold (solo, duet), 1987 gold (solo, duet); WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1982 gold (solo, figures); U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 6 (1981-1986).
In 1984, Tracie Ruiz became the first Olympic champion in the history of synchronized swimming when she won both the solo and duet competition with teammate Candie Costie at her sports Olympic debut in Los Angeles. During her 16-year career from 1973-1988, she captured 41 gold medals, including the 1982 World Championship solo and figures titles, and won at the 1983 and 1987 Pan American Games.
Tracie’s dynamic style and athleticism helped to raise synchronized swimming to new levels of popularity and recognition. Few sports require such a diverse assortment of qualities for success as synchronized swimming. Tracie’s elegance, grace, and strength were the perfect combination needed to propel her captivating sport.
Tracie retired following gold medal performances in Los Angeles, during which time she married weight trainer Mike Conforto. After two years, however, she returned to competition to capture gold medals at the 1987 U.S. National Championships and the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis.
By 1988, Tracie’s quest was to defend her Olympic crown of 1984. In a near-perfect performance at the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials, Tracie received all 10s and five 9.9s for technical merit, a score which ranks as the second best of all time in the sport behind Hall of Famer Heidi O’Rourke’s performance at the 1971 Pan American Games. Several months later, against her long-time competitor Carolyn Waldo of Canada, Tracie was awarded a silver medal in the solo competition for her routine at the Olympic Games in Seoul.
Tracie’s picture-perfect form and dazzling costumes in command performances were the catalysts which launched her sport into the Olympic Games and into the hearts of swimmers around the world.
Following in her Mother’s talented athletic footsteps, Tracie’s son, Michael Conforto is in the starting line-up for the New York Mets as an Outfielder, and will begin his 7th year in Major League Baseball. The Mets selected Conforto in the first round of the 2014 MLB draft with the 10th overall pick. Tracie also has a daughter, Jacqueline, who played soccer on the collegiate level.
Happy Birthday to Honor Swimmer Satoko Tanaka !!!
SATOKO TANAKA (JPN) 1991 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1960 bronze (100m backstroke); 1964 4th place (100m backstroke); WORLD RECORDS: 15 (110yd, 220yd, 200m backstroke) JAPANESE NATIONAL RECORD: 100m, 200m backstroke (1958-1970).
Born on the island of Kyushu, Japan in 1942, Satoko Tanaka battled childhood bronchitis and beriberi to become the world’s greatest 200 meter backstroker of her time. From 1959 to September 1964, she held the World Record, lowering it 10 times, except for a period in 1960 when Lynn Burke set the mark. Satoko reclaimed the title 8 days after Burke’s swim and her new record lasted another 4 years.
Tanaka made her international debut at the 1958 Asian Games, where she set a Japanese record in the 100 meter backstroke with a time of 1:15.1. Two years later, she represented Japan at the 1960 Olympics in Rome and captured the bronze medal, finishing at 1:11.4.
Although Satoko had success swimming the 100 meter backstroke, the 200 was her strongest event. She often won events by over half a pool length and raced against the clock instead of her fellow competitors. Unfortunately, the 200 meter backstroke was not an Olympic event for women in Rome or Tokyo and Satoko never won an Olympic gold medal.
Remarkably, Satoko held the Japanese National record in the 200 meter backstroke from 1958 to 1970 and the 100 meter backstroke for a total of 12 years. She captured 15 World Records in the 200 meter, 110 yard, and 220 yard backstroke events.
Satoko has followed the footsteps of her coach Toshiaki Kurosa. She is a swimming coach for Shinnihon Iron Manufacture and teaches special swimming programs for asthmatics. Satoko still finds time to swim as a member of her local Masters Team.
On this day in 1943, Honor Italian Coach Alberto Castagnetti was born….
Alberto Castagnetti (ITA) 2013 Honor Coach
FOR THE RECORD: ITALIAN NATIONAL TEAM SWIMMING COACH (1987-2009); COACH OF GIORGIO LAMBERTI, DOMENICO FIORAVANTI, FEDERICA PELLEGRINI, ROSOLINO MASSIMILIANO, DAVID RUMOLO, STEFANO BATTISTELLI; DESCRIBED AS “THE WIZARD OF SWIMMING”; COMPETITOR AT 1972 OLYMPIC GAMES AND 1973 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS.
Considered a coaching genius, Alberto Castagnetti was a “wizard of swimming” who made the Italian colors shine on the world stage. But he did not do magic. The reality was that he obtained magnificent results through hard work and unsurpassed professionalism. These were the talents that allowed him to write his name on the greatest chapter of Italian swimming history.
Alberto Castagnetti was born in 1943 in Verona, Italy, to a father who instilled in him not only his love for sports – swimming, skiing, water polo, diving, tennis, triathlon and basketball – but also a passion for learning. As a swimmer, he won numerous Italian championships and he competed in the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 and the first FINA World Championships, in Belgrade in 1973. Apart from the success of Novella Caligaris in the early 1970’s, Italy had played a small role in international swimming until Castagnetti took the helm of Italian swimming in 1987. He was a natural-born coach who got even better by attending clinics conducted by the American Swimming Coaches Association and studying Doc Councilman’s “Science of Swimming”.
His first big international swimmer was Giorgio Lamberti, who broke the world record in the 200 meter freestyle in 1989 and won a gold medal in the same event at the 1991 Perth World Championships. After this, national and foreign swimmers began to join his team. Among them, future Olympic champions Massimiliano Rosolino, Domenico Fioravanti and Federica Pellegrini. During the Castagnetti era, Italy won 264 medals in major international competition with 31 of the 34 gold medals ever won by Italy, including 11 Olympic medals: four gold, two silver and seven bronze medals, making it one of the most important world swimming powers. Pellegrini alone set nine world records in the 200 and 400 meter freestyle.
He was making plans to build on the Italian success of Pellegrini and Filippo Mangini at the 2009 FNA World Championships in Rome, when he died of complications following heart surgery on October 12, 2009.
Alberto Castagnetti will always be remembered as a man of vision, passion and ideas. One of the great modern European coaches, he was notable for his work directly with athletes, his willingness to speak out and to represent his fellow coaches and his profession.
Happy Birthday Felipe Munoz!
FELIPE MUNOZ (MEX) 1991 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1968 gold (200m breaststroke); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1971 silver (200m breaststroke), bronze (200m individual medley).
Although he was nicknamed Tibio (Spanish for lukewarm) after his father from the village of Aguacalientes (hot water) and his mother from the village of Rio Frio (cold water), Felipe Munoz was the hottest name in Mexican swimming history.
After ten days of competition at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, the host country had not won a single gold medal. And at age 17, Munoz was not figured to win the 200 meter breaststroke, even with the hometown advantage. But, to everyone’s surprise, Munoz qualified first for the final with a 2:31.1. Pitted against the top Soviet breaststrokers Kosinsky, Pankin, and Mikhailov, as well as Americans Brian Job and Philip Long, Munoz proved in the final meters of the race that you don’t have to have the lead if you have the heart to come from behind.
The race has been described as one of the most emotional in Olympic history. Munoz was in fourth place at the 100 meter mark, but began closing on the lead swimmer unnoticed. With 50 meters to go, Munoz exploded off the wall to pass Pankin, Job and Kosinsky. The crowd went wild, chanting in unison for their native countryman, “Mu-noz, Mu-noz, Mu-noz”. Touching first at 2:29.9 seconds, Felipe Munoz won Mexico’s first Olympic gold medal in swimming and sparked a celebration that lasted for hours.
After the Olympics, Felipe continued his swimming career and went on to swim at the 1971 Pan American Games where he won a silver and bronze medal in the 200 meter breaststroke and 200 meter I.M. respectively.
On this day of his birth, we remember Bela Rajki…
BELA RAJKI (HUN) 1996 Honor Contributor
FOR THE RECORD: 1948 OLYMPIC GAMES: Swimming Coach; 1952 OLYMPIC GAMES: Swimming and Water Polo Coach; 1956 OLYMPIC GAMES: Water Polo Coach; 1972 OLYMPIC GAMES: Water Polo Coach; 1952 – Present FINA BUREAU: member, vice president; 1954 – Present LEN: member, vice president, president, honorary member; 1952-1964 International Water Polo Board: member, chairman; Author of: Water Polo (1958), The Techniques of Competitive Swimming (1956), Teaching to Swim, Learning to Swim (1978); Noted for his above and underwater photography of swimming and water polo technique.
Like almost every other youngster in his native Hungary, Bela Rajki was a swimmer and a water polo player. Born in 1909, he was one of the first players to surface in the country, and with early contemporary Bela Komjadi, Rajki helped to build Hungary’s world-recognized water polo dynasty.
After withdrawing from the competitive sport as an athlete, he earned coaching diplomas in both swimming and diving and then held a lecturer’s post at the Hungarian College of Physical Education and Sports. The years following World War II, from 1948 to 1967, he became the director of Hungary’s National Sport Swimming Pool. During this time he was the technical director and national coach of Hungarian Swimming and Water Polo Teams from 1947 to 1973.
In Olympic competition, Bela was the head coach of the 1948 Olympic Swimming Team, where Hungary won one gold medal with Eva Novak’s 200m breaststroke swim. He coached both the swimming and water polo Olympic teams of 1952 in Helsinki, Finland, with the water polo team winning the gold medal and four future Hall of Famers winning gold medals in swimming: Katalin Szoke – 100m freestyle, Eva Szekely – 200m breaststroke, Valerie Gyenge – 400m freestyle, and all on the gold medal winning freestyle relay.
In 1956, he again coached the water polo team to a gold medal over the great team from Yugoslavia, and in 1972 at the Munich Olympics, Hungary won the silver medal.
But Bela spent much of his time in the sport, off the pool deck. He was a Bureau member of FINA from 1952 to 1960, a FINA vice president from 1960 to 1964, and remains an Honorary FINA member today. He was a member of the International Water Polo Board from 1952 to 1964, serving as the chairman from 1960 to 1964. Bela served as vice president of the Liga Europea de Natacion (LEN) from 1954 to 1958 and as president from 1958 to 1962. After serving an additional four years as Bureau member from 1962 to 1966, he was made an honorary LEN member in 1994. In 1996, at age 86, Bela remains a member of the Hungarian Olympic Committee and the Honorary Life President of the Hungarian Water Polo Federation.
Bela Rajki’s contributions do not stop here. He has authored the first technique book on swimming, The Techniques of Competitive Swimming, published in 1956 with a second printing in 1963. His 1958 book Water Polo is a technical book dealing with every aspect of the sport. His 1978 book, with a second printing in 1980, Teaching to Swim, Learning to Swim, deals with teaching the techniques of the four competitive strokes, and is used throughout the world. His books are noted for the early scientific approach to the sport and for the more than 528 above water and underwater photos. Photography and motion picture film taking are a very important part of Bela’s contributions to the development of swimming and water polo. With the initial leadership of Hungarian journalist Andre Sima, who first suggested the use of photography in supporting scientific data and who took many of the original photos used in the photo sequence pages for which Bela is so notably recognized, Bela is greatly acknowledged for his published photographic series of above water and underwater photographs and their importance in supporting coaching data.
He has also written over 250 articles and periodical studies in the sport.
Although his record would disprove it, Bela Rajki is better recognized for his academic contributions to the sport than coaching contributions to the sport. He is a giant of his time who has devoted his entire life to the development and athleticism of our disciplines of water polo and swimming.
Happy Birthday Anastasia Davydova !!!
Anastasia Davydova (RUS) 2017 Honor Synchronized Swimmer !!!
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 5 gold; 2004 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (duet, team); 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (duet, team), 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (team); WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 12 gold, one silver; 2001 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (team), silver (duet); 2003 World Championships: gold (duet, team); 2005 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet), 2007 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet technical, duet free, team free, 2009 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet technical, team free), 2011 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (team free, team technical); EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: 7 gold.
Her first sport was figure skating. Then she saw rhythmic gymnastics on TV and she left the ice for the ribbon and mat, but not for long. At the age of six, her mother took her for swim lessons where she was exposed to synchronized swimming. She immediately loved the sport. Early on in her career, she was tested by her coach to see if she was really serious about synchronized swimming. She was asked to give up her favorite foods of chocolate, cakes and chips. She loved the sport more, gave the foods up and the rest, as they say, is history.
In a sport that usually forces athletes to be patient as they build international reputations, Anastasia Davydova did not have to wait very long to move to the top. At age 15, she was paired with Anastasia Ermakova (2015 ISHOF Honoree), because they were very successful at the junior level and judges were familiar with them by the time they became seniors. At their first major senior international event, they placed second in duet at the 2001 FINA World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. The next year they performed a nearly flawless routine, including five perfect 10’s in the final free program, to win the European Championships. At the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona, Davydova and Ermakova won their first senior world duet title; the Russian team was also victorious. Davydova won team and duet at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Athens in April 2004 and the European Championships in Madrid in May 2004. At the Olympic Games in Athens, Davydova and Ermakova won gold in the duet with an impeccable routine, scoring a perfect 50 for artistic impression (receiving a score of ten from all five judges). In the team event, they also won gold, even after a music malfunction required them to repeat their performance.
Leading up to the Beijing Games, Davydova, Ermakova and the Russians were unbeatable, winning every event they entered. In Beijing, the pair again won duet gold, earning a combined score of 99.251 and perfect 10’s for technical merit. The Russian team also won, leaving Ermakova and Davydova with a record four gold synchro medals.
After Ermakova retired, Davydova began training with Svetlana Romashina, but after the pair won at the 2011 FINA World Championships, Davydova stepped aside in favor of Natalia Ishchenko to focus on the team event, her studies at the Moscow Institute of Economics, Politics, and Law and on coaching youth at her local club. When she announced her retirement after winning gold in the team event at the 2012 Olympic Games, she also announced that she would turn her energy to coaching. She wanted to be part of keeping the Russians on top of the podium. She did just that at the 2016 Rio Olympics where Russia won both synchronized swimming gold medals.
In 2010, FINA declared her the best synchronized swimmer of the XXI century and in 2012 she was the standard bearer of the Russian Olympic team at the closing ceremony of the Games in London.
