Decision Day Fast Approaching On New World Leading Aquatics Centre In Time For Brisbane 2032 Olympics
by IAN HANSON – OCEANIA CORRESPONDENT
10 March 2024, 07:15pm
Decision Approaching For New World Leading Aquatics Centre In Time For Brisbane 2032 Olympics
The debate around whether or not the Brisbane 2032 Olympics should be swum in a new world class Aquatic Centre or in a temporary facility at the planned Brisbane Arena is finally starting to hot up – and it’s one gold medal swimming bosses are desperate to win.
Enter into the race, dual Olympic champion and one of Queensland’s favourite swimming sons Grant Hackett and a renewed push from National governing body Swimming Australia who first entered the fray some 12 months ago – continuing to making a splash behind closed doors in what would be a far-reaching decision for the sport down under.
This week officially throwing their support behind triple Olympic medallist and Brisbane developer Mark Stockwell’s on-going public push to secure a new Aquatic Centre and a swimming legacy for the country’s number one Olympic sport.
Stockwell, Hackett and Swimming Australia all declaring: “Brisbane deserves a new world-leading Aquatic Centre.”
With Swimming Australia also keen to make Brisbane the new national home of swimming.
“When the opportunity arose to win the Olympics and Paralympics for Brisbane there was a general feeling of ‘let’s win the rights to host the Games and then we will come back and review the plan in all its detail,’ said Stockwell.
MAKING AN IMPRESSION: Australian Swimming bosses hoping for a gold medal decision on a new Aquatic Centre in Brisbane. Courtesy Courier Mail.
“This has not happened, and in talking to most presidents of Olympic and Paralympic sports the direct consultation never took place.
“There has been no indication that the construction of a permanent Aquatic facility has ever genuinely been considered by the government as an alternative venue to Brisbane Live Arena (and a temporary pool).
“This new Aquatic Centre facility and an upgraded Brisbane Aquatic Centre facility at Chandler can be used by swimming, diving, water polo, artistic swimming and Snow Australia.”
Stockwell also making the point that the new Aquatic Centre would be an ideal main venue for Brisbane to host the 2031 World Aquatics Championships – 12 months before the Games – an event previously hosted in 1991 and 1998 in Perth and 2007 in Melbourne.
And while Stockwell has been the one to continue to fight the good fight for a new Aquatic Centre, with a page one story and another column today in Queensland’s popular daily masthead The Courier Mail, Hackett has also weighed in, agreeing that the value of what a new facility would mean to the sport is a no brainer.
“Throughout our consultation phase, we heard confusion and disappointment from the swimming community and other stakeholders that Brisbane 2032 would not deliver a venue legacy outcome for swimming,” revealed Hackett.
“There is no doubt that a permanent venue will inspire future generations of swimmers and bring the community closer to the Games and their legacy.”
A 60-day review into the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Venue Master Plan is in its final laps, with former Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, at the helm of a review team due to hand down its findings next Monday, March 18 – after consulting with a broad range of stakeholders.
With Swimming Australia actually presenting to the Brisbane 2032 Independent Review Panel into Venue Plans last month with Hackett’s support from a committee that also includes Australian Paralympic legend Ellie Cole, Sydney 2000 silver medallist and Swimming NSW CEO Kirsten Thompson and World Aquatics Vice President and Australian Olympian Matt Dunn.
Swimming Australia certainly welcoming the Queensland Government’s Independent Review of Brisbane 2032 Venue Plans and renewed calls for the Games to deliver a new permanent world class Aquatic facility – and to make Brisbane the its long overdue National home.
In a statement on its website, Swimming Australia said it has made it clear it considers plans for temporary pools at the proposed Brisbane Arena are a missed opportunity for the Games to deliver a much-needed, world-class Aquatic facility for Brisbane, Queensland and the nation.
“A new world-class and permanent Aquatic facility constructed in time for Brisbane 2032 Games would deliver a more cost-effective venue solution, an enhanced community legacy outcome and address existing gaps in the aquatic infrastructure network.
“A new permanent Aquatic Centre could deliver lasting legacy benefits for swimming, aquatic sports, the broader community, and the Queensland economy.
“Re-configuring with reduced seating capacity post-Games, following the successful lead of Sydney, Beijing, London, and Tokyo as previous Host Cities.
“It would also be utilised before and after the Games to host local, State, National and International events, and contribute to Queensland’s visitor economy for decades to come, inspiring greater swimming participation and be a leading hub for high performance programs and sport science innovation.
“With accessibility for the community year-round for a range of sport and recreation activities, including carnivals, lap swimming and learn to swim programs.
“Swimming Australia is committed to working collaboratively with the Government and other partners to realise this vision and to determine a location and design that serves the Games and meets the future needs of our sport and other user groups.”
For swimming in Brisbane, Queensland and Australia’s sake, let’s hope some common-sense prevails…..!
Women’s History Month: Aussie Fanny Durack a Pioneer in Olympic Women’s Swimming As The First Champion
by JOHN LOHN – ASSOCIATE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
01 March 2021
Women’s History Month: Aussie Fanny Durack a Pioneer in Olympic Women’s Swimming As The First Champion
Today, March 1, marks the beginning of Women’s History Month. To mark the beginning of the month, we look at the arrival of women in the Olympic pool, where Australian Fanny Durack became the first Olympic swimming champion among women, over 100m freestyle, on July 12, 1912.
Takeoff to Tokyo (Fanny Durack) – From the April Issue of Swimming World Magazine
When the Olympic Games return to Tokyo this summer, one of the highlights will be a swimming schedule that is identical for men and women, the 1500 freestyle added for the ladies and the 800 freestyle added to the program for the gentlemen. But the first four editions of swimming at the Modern Olympics did not feature equality, women not involved until 1912, at which point Fanny Durack made a major splash.
Not long after Hungarian Alfred Hajos became the first Olympic swimming champion, winning the gold medal in the 100 freestyle at the 1896 Games in Athens, Australia’s Sarah “Fanny” Durack developed the urge to learn to swim. It wasn’t that Durack, a youngster at the time, was inspired by Hajos’ efforts, or the performances by any other male swimmer.
Rather, Durack’s desire to swim was triggered out of necessity and in the pursuit of peace of mind. While on vacation as a 9-year-old, Durack struggled with the surf in her native land, and it was that experience which convinced her to become water safe. It was a decision which made Durack swimming’s first female superstar.
From 1896, when the first Modern Games were held in the birthplace of the Ancient Olympics, through 1908, only men were allowed to compete in swimming at the Olympics. During that time, the likes of Hajos, American Charles Daniels, Great Britain’s Henry Taylor and Hungary’s Zoltan Halmay emerged as the sport’s standouts.
It wasn’t like women were banned from the Olympics altogether during that stretch of time, as female athletes competed in events such as sailing, tennis and equestrian as early as the 1900 Games in Paris. Swimming, though, didn’t create a coed program until the 1912 Games, which were held in Stockholm, Sweden.
When it was announced women would be invited to compete in Stockholm, some countries jumped at the opportunity while others were disinterested. Only 27 women took part in the two swimming events, the 100 freestyle and 400 freestyle relay, with host Sweden and Great Britain sending six athletes each. Australia sent two swimmers, Durack and Mina Wylie, while the United States opted to send no women, despite fielding a team of seven men.
BelleMoore, Jennie Fletcher, a team chaperone, Annie Speirs and Irene Steer at Stockholm 1912 – Photo Courtesy: ISHOF
While Durack had put together an impressive career, Wylie actually held the upper hand over her countrywoman in the leadup to the 1912 Games. Wylie beat Durack on several occasions at the Australian Championships and was considered a gold-medal favorite as much as Durack, who had the higher profile.
Getting to the Olympics, however, proved to be an issue for Durack and Wylie, with politics playing a role. Considering the role politics have played throughout the history of the Olympic Games, maybe it was fitting Durack and Wylie had to play a waiting game.
“The Aussie men in charge of selecting the team for the 1912 Games declared that it was a waste of time and money to send women to Sweden,” wrote Craig Lord in an article for the former SwimVortex website.
“The rule book didn’t help, either. The New South Wales Ladies’ Amateur Swimming Association regulations held that no women could compete at events where men were present. A public outcry resulted in a vote and rule change at the association and Durack and Wylie were allowed to make the journey to Europe – provided they paid for themselves. The wife of Hugh McIntosh, a sporting and theatrical entrepreneur and newspaper proprietor, launched a successful appeal for funds and with money donated by the public, family and friends, Durack sailed for Sweden via London, where she was reported to have trained half a mile a day.”
The competition pool was hardly high-tech in nature, constructed in Stockholm Harbor and consisting of salt water. But Durack wasn’t derailed by the conditions. Representing Australasia, a combined team from Australia and New Zealand, Durack opened her Olympic career in grand fashion, setting a world record of 1:19.8 during qualifying heats of the 100 freestyle. She followed by winning her semifinal easily, and then captured the gold medal with a time of 1:22.2, more than three seconds quicker than Wylie.
Great Britain’s Daisy Curwen was expected to be a medal contender in the final, but the former world-record holder was forced to withdraw from the competition after the semifinal round due to a bout of appendicitis. It was Curwen’s world record which Durack broke during the qualifying heats.
With Durack and Wylie the only Aussies competing in swimming, Australasia could not field a squad for the 400 freestyle relay, although it tried. Durack and Wylie offered to swim two legs each if Australasia was given the chance to race, but officials denied the request and Great Britain’s quartet of Belle Moore, Jennie Fletcher, Annie Speirs and Irene Steer went on to win the gold medal by nearly 12 seconds over Germany. Fletcher was the bronze medalist behind Durack and Wylie in the 100 freestyle and spoke of the limited practice time she and her teammates had in preparation for the 1912 Games. Said Fletcher years later:
“We swam only after working hours, and they were 12 hours and six days a week. We were told bathing suits were shocking and indecent, and even when entering competition, we were covered with a floor-length cloak until we entered the water.”
With only two women’s events, as opposed to the seven on the men’s program, there is no telling what Durack could have done if given the chance to contest additional events. But a lack of equality in the Olympic schedule has been more commonplace than not during the 100-plus years of the Games. From the first time women competed in swimming at the Olympics through the 1972 Games in Munich, men’s events always outnumbered women’s events.
And while men and women each competed in 13 events at the 1976 and 1980 Games, there were fewer women’s events over the next three Olympiads. Since 1996, however, the number of events between the genders has matched, albeit with a caveat. Through the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, there was inequality in the length of the longest events on each program. While men’s distance swimmers contested the 1500 freestyle as their gender’s longest event, women covered just more than half that distance via the 800 freestyle.
A change is coming next summer, thanks to the International Olympic Committee’s decision to expand the men’s and women’s programs. The addition of the 1500 freestyle for women is belated recognition of the gender’s ability to handle demanding tests of skill and endurance.
A parallel can be found in the history of track and field. It wasn’t until the 1984 Games in Los Angeles in which women contested the marathon, and in some years prior, women’s distances were capped at 1,500 meters while male athletes were given the opportunity to double in the 5,000 and 10,000.
Katie Ledecky – Photo courtesy: TYR
“I was happy to see it,” said world-record holder Katie Ledecky of the addition of the 1500 freestyle. “I think adding the 1,500 was a long time coming. It’s good that there’s parity in the men’s and women’s distance events now.”
From 1912-1918, Durack set 11 world records over various distances, including three in the 100-meter freestyle. Her fastest time of 1:16.2 from 1915 lasted as the world record for five years, until American Ethelda Bleibtrey won Olympic gold in 1:14.4. A Durack-Bleibtrey duel would have been a highlight event of the 1920 Games, but illness prevented Durack from racing.
After being denied the chance to defend her Olympic title in 1916 due to the cancellation of the Games by World War I, Durack was hoping to repeat in 1920, but appendicitis put an end to that dream. More, Durack came down with typhoid fever and pneumonia a week before Australia’s athletes were scheduled to sail to Europe for the Antwerp Games.
In between competitions, Durack took part in numerous world tours, along with Wylie, in which they would race one another and demonstrate the Australian crawl, the stroke which Durack made famous and used to become a world-record holder. Durack’s vast achievements earned her induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1967, the third year of the Hall’s existence.
“Fanny Durack not only took on all comers the world over, but beat all comers the world over for eight years in the formative years of women’s swimming,” reads Durack’s profile in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Happy Birthday Jozsef Szabo!!
Jozsef Szabo (HUN)
Honor Swimmer (2012)
FOR THE RECORD: 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (200m breaststroke); 1986 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m breaststroke); 1987 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m breaststroke), silver (4x100m medley); 1989 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: bronze (200m breaststroke).
In Jozsef Szabo’s competitive swimming days, he became part of a family of swimmers and teammates. Like a family, each member had a role. He was known as the clown, to provide and keep everyone in good spirits and laughs.
Under Coach Tamas Szechy, most of the swimmers had one thing in common, they were great breaststroke swimmers. Szabo was no exception. Along with Norbert Rozsa, Tamas Darnyi and Karoly Guttler, he became one of the greatest breaststroke swimmers in the world.
Szabo swam at the Budeapesti Honved Sportegyesulet. He burst onto the international scene at the 1986 Madrid World Championships, winning the 200 meter breaststroke, and repeating it in the next year at the 1987 European Championships in Strasburg, Austria.
Tall for an elite breaststroke swimmer at 6’1”, and weighing 180 pounds, Szabo surprised the world when he won the Olympic gold medal at the 1988 Olympic Games, defeating Nick Gillingham of Great Britain and Sergio Lopez of Spain in the 200 meter breaststroke, only .18 seconds off Canadian Victor Davis’ world record.
All totaled, Szabo won one Olympic gold medal, one World Championship gold medal and three European Championship medals, one gold, one silver and one bronze.
Happy Birthday Michelle Calkins!!
Michelle Calkins (CAN)
Honor Synchronized / Artistic Swimmer (2001)
FOR THE RECORD: 1973 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (team); 1978 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet); 1976 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: silver (team); 1976 PAN PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (team); 1977 PAN PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet); NATIONAL TEAM COACH AND OLYMPIC COACH: 1988 – present.
Coach Debbie Muir of the Calgary Aquabelles had a knack for pairing the two most synchronized swimmers on her team when she paired Michelle Calkins with Helen Vanderberg to win the 1978 World Championships duet in Berlin, Germany. It marked the first time that Canadian synchronized swimmers had won a World Duet Championship, an important milestone in the evolution of synchronized swimming in Canada. In 1977, Michelle and her Hall of Fame partner Helen were named to the Elaine Tanner Award as Canada’s best young female athletes of the year by Sports Federation of Canada. And all this before synchronized swimming became an Olympic sport!
In 1969, Michelle won the ’12 and under’ Alberta Provincial Figures Trophy and was on her way to synchronized swimming stardom. By 1971, she was a member of The Aquabelles Junior National Team Champions and in 1973 a Canadian Junior National Solo Champion. From 1973 to 1978, she won seven Canadian Senior National Championships in duet, team and figures events. Her first international competition was winning the silver medal in the 1973 First World Championships team event in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. She won the silver in the Mexico City 1975 Pan American Games team event. The Pan Pacific Championships of 1976 and 1977 were the warm up to the gold medal performance of the 1978 World Championships. All this was before synchronized swimming was an Olympic event. Also during 1978, she performed in a demonstration of synchronized swimming at the Edmonton Commonwealth Games before synchronized swimming became an official Commonwealth Games event eight years later in 1986.
Michelle’s success was by virtue of her exacting technical skill. Her and teammate Helen’s 1978 combined figures scores were 87.30, a full 2.70 points above the duet silver medalists. She performed creatively and with intensely dramatic routines. Michelle, with partner Helen, instigated the great success of their home club in Calgary culminating ten years later in another goal medal duet win, this time by Carolyn Waldo and Michelle Cameron at the 1988 Olympic Games.
Michelle’s passion for synchronized swimming never diminished and she is now the head coach of her Aquabelles as well as serving as a Canadian National Team coach since 1988. She was the 1996 Canadian Olympic coach when Canada won the silver medal in the team event.
Happy Birthday Daichi Suzuki!!
Daichi Suzuki (JPN)
Honor Swimmer (2022)
FOR THE RECORD: 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: GOLD (100M BACKSTROKE); 1987 PAN PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS: SILVER (100M BACKSTROKE); 1986 ASIAN GAMES: GOLD (100M BACKSTROKE, 400M MEDLEY RELAY); 1987 UNIVERSIADE GAMES: GOLD (100 & 200 BACKSTROKE) ONE JAPANESE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP: 100M BACKSTROKE
As the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games approached, Japan had gone 16 years without winning a medal in swimming, a sport that it had once reigned as the world’s superpower. As swimming has always been an important part of Japanese culture, dating back to at least the Tokugawa Shogunate of the 15th Century, its performances at the Olympic Games was no longer a source of pride. Enter Daichi Suzuchi.
Suzuki’s parents signed him up for swimming lessons at the age of seven. It took only six months before Suzuki decided that he wanted to be an Olympian. It wasn’t until high school, swimming for coach Yoji Suzuki, that he began to show real promise, and after his junior year he began rigorous training with the hope of making the Japanese Olympic team in 1984. While he did not make the finals in the backstroke events, he was a member of the 400-meter medley relay team. They were the only Japanese men to swim in a final in 1984.
By 1986, Suzuki was one of the Top 10 backstrokers in the world. As he continued training and competing, he began winning. He won gold in the 100m backstroke and in the 400m medley relay at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, South Korea. He took silver in the 100m back at the 1987 Pan-Pac Championships in Brisbane, Australia, and at the Universiade Games in Zagreb in 1987, he won gold in both the 100 and 200m backstroke events, beating USA’s up and comer – David Berkoff in the 100.
By the time the 1988 Olympics came around the next year, Berkoff was the one to beat, unless of course you asked Suzuki or his coach. Suzuki had analyzed Berkoff’s swimming style and noticed Berkoff usually swam faster in the morning. Suzuki decided he would conserve his energy for the finals in Seoul. Suzuki also noticed that Berkoff stayed underwater until the 35-meter mark, known as the Berkoff Blastoff. Yet probably most importantly, and something that was completely missed by most of the swimming world, was that years earlier, at the 1984 Games, Suzuki had already adopted the underwater kick and decided to use it at the Games.
As expected, Berkoff swam fast and broke the world record in the prelims. When it was time for finals, Suzuki was in lane three next to Berkoff in lane four. Suzuki surfaced at about 30 meters after the start, just ahead of Berkoff, who remained underwater for another 5 meters. Berkoff pulled in front at the turn, but Suzuki chased him down over the last ten meters of the race. Instead of his usual arch finish, Suzuki decided to reach straight for the wall to out-touch Berkoff, winning the gold medal in a time of 55.05.
It was the first time Japan had won the gold medal in a backstroke event since Masaji Kiokawa had won it 52 years earlier in Los Angeles in 1936, and the first time in 16 years since that Japan had won a medal of any color in Olympic swimming. It was also the only swimming medal Japan won in Seoul.
Suzuki retired just after the 1988 Olympic Games. He had achieved his dream and decided to focus on his future and career. Among other things, he wanted to help future Japanese swimmers be able to truly focus on swimming, while not having to worry about making a living. That was not possible during his era, as international rules did not allow swimmers to become professionals.
Suzuki became a member of the Japan Olympic Committee, the World Olympians Association, the World Anti Doping Agency and Japan Swimming Federation, eventually becoming the youngest President in its history at 46.
Between his role as President of Japanese Swimming Federation and in his new position as Commissioner, he has helped lead Japan in rebuilding and revival as a world swimming power, as evidenced by its performances in the last two Olympic Games, where Japan won seven medals in 2016 and 11 medals in 2012. Rest assured that the future of Japanese swimming is in the good hands of Daichi Suzuki, Olympic Champion and 2022 ISHOF Honoree.
Happy Birthday David Wilkie!!
David Wilkie (GBR)
Honor Swimmer (1982)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1972 silver (200m breaststroke); 1976 gold (200m breaststroke, silver 9100m breaststroke); WORLD RECORDS: 3 (200m breaststroke; 200m individual medley); AAU NATIONALS: 3 (100yd, 200yd breaststroke; 200yd individual medley); NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS: 3 (100yd, 200yd breaststroke); EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1974 gold (200m breaststroke; 200m individual medley), silver (relay); COMMONWEALTH GAMES: 1974 gold (200m breaststroke; 200m individual medley), silver (100m breaststroke); 1970 bronze (200m breaststroke); AMATEUR SWIMMING ASSOCIATION CHAMPIONSHIPS: 10 (100yd, 200yd breaststroke; 200yd individual medley); WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1972 gold (200m breaststroke); 1973 bronze (200m individual medley); 1975 gold (100m, 200m breaststroke), bronze (relay); CANADIAN NATIONAL: 1 (200m breaststroke); SCOTTISH CHAMPIONSHIPS: 9 (400m freestyle; 100m backstroke; 110yd, 100m breaststroke; 220yd, 200m breaststroke; 200m, 400m individual medley); U.S. OPEN RECORD: 1 (200yd breaststroke).
Born in Ceylon and trained between his two Olympic Games at the University of Miami, David Wilkie is a Scotsman who likes warm weather. He was Great Britain’s first swimming male Olympic gold medalist in 68 years (Hall of Famer Henry Taylor in 1907). This versatile swimmer won Scot national titles in the 400 freestyle and 100 back; Commonwealth, European and American titles in the four strokes, 200 Individual Medley in which he also held the world record, but he was at his best with trademark bathing cap and goggles, bobbing through Scottish, British, U.S. AAU, NCAA, European, Commonwealth and Olympic breaststroke championships. A silver for his second in the 1972 Olympic 200-meter breaststroke at Munich and a gold, silver and bronze at the 1976 Olympics in Montréal with every kind of a record achievement in between, labeled this flying Scot European Swimmer of the Year three times and British Sportsman of the Year. Coached by David Haller in Britain and Bill Diaz in the USA, Wilkie retired after the ’76 Olympics to a successful new hobby in Masters Swimming, where he just naturally trained at his own pace and went right on winning. He works in London with the Sports Aide Foundation, writes books, and works as British representative for Team Arena among other things.
Generations at the Pool: The Barrowman father-daughter duo come together from the Cayman Islands to Doha
Shared from and Written by Tatsuo Ogura, World Aquatics Correspondent
Mike Barrowman, Olympic gold medallist and former world record holder in the men’s 200m breaststroke, stood on the pool deck of the World Aquatics Championships in Doha. It was a mixture of familiar yet strange moments for him, being around the water and other swimmers, with memories of his past achievements echoing in his mind.
This time, however, he isn’t here to compete, but to support three swimmers from the Cayman Islands, including his own daughter, Harper Barrowman, along with James Richard Allison and Jillian Janis Geohagan Crooks on the squad.
“Thirty-two years,” he reflected, coming back to the world stage and looking around at how much the landscape of swimming has changed. “It’s quite a challenge to see how things have changed. But at the core, it’s still 50 meters of water, still wet. It’s different, yet familiar. It’s nice to be here.”
Barrowman Senior is recognised as one of the all-time legends of the sport. He broke the 200m breaststroke world record six times over eleven years during a remarkable winning streak where he took 15 of 16 major national and international titles. The last time he competed in the world championships was 33 years ago in Perth, Australia.
Image Source: Mike Barrowman en route to winning gold at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics (Simon Bruty/Allsport)
His final Olympic appearance was in Barcelona in 1992, where he held onto his world record for a decade until Japanese swimming legend Kosuke Kitajima broke it in 2002 in Busan. Since then, his journey led him to coach at the University of Michigan for a few years before he left the world of swimming and settled in the beautiful Cayman Islands with his family. Being at the world championships as a team official was a new role for him, one that he embraced with a mix of nostalgia and pride.
Here is a question, however, “Why is he coming back?”
“I was the last guy in line,” he explained. “We had our national championships at the same time and they needed somebody to fill the role. So they asked, ‘Can you do it?’”
Image Source: Matt McNulty/Getty Images
Harper, his daughter, had already made her mark in the swimming world during the previous summer in Fukuoka. This is her second appearance at the world championships here in Doha. For her, competing on the world stage alongside her idols was a dream come true. But having her parents by her side this time made the experience even more special.
“To have your parents here, it really shows the support, and I really like that,” Harper explained, her eyes shining with pride and joy she felt in her father’s return to the swimming realm. “With everything he did, he’s left the swimming world behind. So to have him come back into that role for me, that’s really special to see.”
Growing up, Harper had heard countless stories and watched old video footage of her father’s legendary performances. Mike Barrowman is not just a swimming icon; he is her father, her mentor, her inspiration. His experience and wisdom are invaluable assets not only to her but to the entire Cayman Islands national team too.
Image Source: Al Bello/Getty Images
As Harper prepared to dive into the same waters at the world championships where her father had once excelled at the world championships, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of connection and reverence. “Every time it’s incredible to be able to stand up in front of the pool and think that this is exactly what he did, thinking and feeling the same things that he did,” she remarked. “It’s really something special to be able to participate in the same thing that he did.”
With Mike’s presence, the Cayman Islands national team had their sights set on history-making moments. Jordan Crooks, Jillian’s older brother and a contender in the men’s sprint, carried the hopes of a nation eager for Olympic glory. The chance of winning the first-ever Olympic medal for the Cayman Islands in Paris is getting closer, highlighting the dedication and passion of the athletes.
“My days in swimming are limited,” said Barrowman senior when asked if he would be seen on the pool deck more often. “I enjoy watching my daughter swim, but it’s not something I’m ready to get back into.”
As the championships progressed in Doha, father and daughter shared moments of pride, excitement, and anticipation. The future is uncertain, but one thing is clear—they are united in their love for swimming and their determination to pursue their dreams, wherever they may lead.
Happy Birthday Virginia Duenkel!!
Virginia Duenkel (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1985)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1964 gold (400m freestyle), bronze (100m backstroke); WORLD RECORD: 1 1964 (100m backstroke); AAU NATIONALS (4): 1962 (200m backstroke), 1963 (200yd, 200m backstroke, 1500m freestyle); AMERICAN RECORDS (2): 1962 (200m backstroke), 1963 (200yd back); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1963 gold (relay); WOMEN’S NATIONAL COLLEGIATE Titles: 1965, 1966, 1967 (backstroke).
“Ginny” Duenkel won four U.S. Nationals, but none were in the events that she competed in at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. Her two best events, the 200 backstroke and the 1500 freestyle, were not Olympic events. She had to settle for the shorter 100m back and 400m freestyle, neither of which she had won at either the U. S. Nationals or at the U.S. trials. Nevertheless, Ginny had her heart set on winning the 100 back, thereby qualifying for the sure win U.S. Medley Relay. She lost by a look and finished third ( a tenth of a second behind first).
The next day was to be the 400 freestyle and another chance for Duenkel, but a slim chance since she was up against world record holders and teammate Marilyn Romenofsky, the present world record holder who won in the preliminaries.
The race was a honey. Romenofsky, Stickles, Fraser of Australia and Hughes of Canada, all present or former world record holders, finished in that order, but all were behind Virginia Duenkel, the new Olympic Champion who had won her first individual event in international competition.
Nobody can be quite sure what went on in this quiet, gutsy girl’s head, but her brother Bob says he thinks he knows her well enough to be sure that if she’d won the backstroke, she wouldn’t have returned the next day to win the 400.
Ginny won her first Nationals at age 15, finally beating Donna deVarona in the 200 backstroke. In this race, she set her first world record, crashing the time of Japan’s Satoko Tanaka. Ginny accomplished all this and more on one hour a day workouts six times a week with her coach Frank Elm, commuting 50 miles from her home in West Orange, New Jersey to the Summit “Y” in Rutgers.
Happy Birthday Olga Sedakova!!
Olga Sedakova (RUS)
Honor Synchronized / Artistic Swimmer (2019)
FOR THE RECORD: 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: 4th (solo, duet); 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: 4th (team); 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 4th (solo, duet, team); 1994 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: 4th (solo, team); 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (solo, duet, team); 1991 WORLD CUP: 4th (solo, team); 1993 WORLD CUP: silver (duet), bronze (solo); 1995 WORLD CUP: bronze (solo, team); 1997 WORLD CUP: gold (solo, duet, team); 1994 GOODWILL GAMES: gold (solo); 1990 SOVIET WOMEN’S CUP: bronze (duet), 6th (solo); 1991 SOVIET WOMEN’S CUP: gold (solo, duet). Nine-time European Championships
The sport of synchronized swimming had been around since the early 20th century when Annette Kellerman and Katherine Curtis were the first performers of the growing sport, but it did not come to the Soviet Union until decades later. When Olga Sedakova was about nine-years-old, she and her twin sister came upon synchronized swimming by pure chance.
Olga’s mother, an engineer, was working at one of the largest aquatic centers in Moscow and it was there that the girls discovered the sport. Olga and her sister were trained by their young coach, Elena Polianskaja. It was clear Olga had raw talent in the sport, but because synchronized swimming was so new to the Soviet Union, it would be years before she would be considered world class.
When Olga was in her mid-teens, Soviet women’s magazine, “Journal Price”, hosted an international competition to celebrate International Women’s Day for Soviet Women, providing a great opportunity for young synchronized swimmers like Olga to see and learn from successful swimmers.
She absorbed as much knowledge as she could and in 1988 at the European Junior Championships, Olga helped the Soviet Union win its first gold medal in the sport. This led to her selection on the national senior team.
After the Olympics, Olga decided to make a change and moved to Zurich, Switzerland to begin training with Kozlova’s coach, Svetlana Fursova. Together, they won Russia its first medal at the world level with a silver in the duet performance at a 1993 FINA World Cup meet in Lausanne. Then in 1994, Olga won her first international gold medal in the solo event at the Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg.
After her success, Kozlova and Fursova moved to North America and she was left alone without a partner or coach. She decided to coach at her club in Zurich and train in her free time with the help of Swiss coach Susie Morger. She eventually moved back to Russia to train with the national team leading up to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta where they placed fourth as a team, getting shut out of the medals for the second straight Olympics.
After the Olympics, Olga returned to Russia and began training with new partner, ISHOF honoree Olga Brushnikina and was performing at the top of her game.
Her career culminated in 1998 when Olga Sedakova won solo, duet and team at the World Championships in Perth, becoming just the fourth person to sweep every single event at Worlds.
Feeling that she achieved everything she set out to do, Olga retired from synchronized swimming and decided to take on a new challenge in coaching. She became the Swiss National Team coach and led them into the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games but has since stopped coaching to focus on family.
She has since married and has three daughters and is hoping to one day return to the sport of synchronized swimming.
Mother courage: the story behind new film “Vindication Swim”
1 MARCH 2024
Swimming legend Mercedes Gleitze was the first British woman to swim the English Channel. She was also a pioneer in other ways: an independent, working class woman who swam to fight poverty. In the run up to a new film of her life, Vindication Swim, Mercedes’ daughter Doloranda Pember shares the story behind her pioneering feats of endurance
This article was first published in H2Open (the previous name for Outdoor Swimmer) in April 2016.
Mercedes Gleitze was a pioneer long distance swimmer who, in 1927, became the first British woman to swim across the English Channel.
Her background was one of working class, immigrant status. During the last decade of the 19th century her parents travelled from Germany to England to look for work, and they settled in Brighton, where Mercedes and her two elder sisters were born. This is where Mercedes learnt to swim when she was 10 years old.
After World War I, the family resettled in Germany. In 1921, when she came of age, Mercedes returned to England, the country of her birth. She found a job as a typist in London, rented a flat, and became one of the ‘new women’ of that era, living an independent life of her own choosing.
But she wanted more from life. She had two ambitions: to become a long distance swimmer; and to help the unemployed homeless people sleeping rough in London. She believed that if she became a professional swimmer she might earn enough in prize money to set up a charity to combat poverty.
Training to swim the Channel
Mercedes made the English Channel crossing her first goal. She used the River Thames (a tidal river) to train in on Sundays, and during her summer vacation she travelled to Folkestone to acclimatise to sea conditions.
It took her a while, but on 7 October 1927, at her eighth formal attempt, Mercedes swam across a fog-bound English Channel from Cap Gris Nez to St Margaret’s Bay in 15 hours 15 minutes. The beach at St Margaret’s Bay was also heavily shrouded in fog and the only witnesses to the landing were her accompanying crew.
A few days later, however, another Channel aspirant, Dorothy Logan, hoaxed the nation into thinking she too had completed the swim. When suspicions were aroused by both the French and English authorities, Dr Logan was challenged and confessed, claiming that she and her partner, Horace Carey, had perpetrated the fraud in order to highlight the fact that – as she put it – “anyone can say they have swum the Channel”. But by so doing she sullied the reputations of all those who had genuinely completed the crossing.
A vindication swim
In response to the slight cast upon her, Mercedes retorted: “All right, I will do it again. The best way to restore the prestige of British female Channel swimmers in the eyes of the world would be for me to make another Channel swim, which I will do at the next neap tide. My conscience is clear, but I want to repeat my performance in the presence of all the witnesses I can get.”
“When Mercedes saw the ladder being let down from the support boat she swam away and had to be chased. A twisted towel was thrown over her head and underneath her arms, and after a struggle and protests from her to “let me go on”, her trainer and pilot pulled her aboard.”
The ‘Vindication Swim’ took place on 21 October, and was widely covered by the world’s press. But it was too late in the season. The sea temperature was 12 degrees Celsius and Mercedes was suffering from a chest cold she developed after her successful crossing two weeks earlier. After ten and a half hours the Vindication Swim was abandoned on the advice of doctors. At this point, she had been battling for three hours against an ebb tide and was on the verge of unconsciousness. When Mercedes saw the ladder being let down from the support boat she swam away and had to be chased. A twisted towel was thrown over her head and underneath her arms, and after a struggle and protests from her to “let me go on”, her trainer and pilot pulled her aboard. She was eight miles from Dover.
However, it was subsequently acknowledged by the newly formed Channel Swimming Association that Mercedes had exonerated herself, and her record as the first British woman to swim the English Channel stood.
Challenging the perception of women
At this point she decided to give up office work and make a living out of sea swimming. It was a high risk decision: she didn’t have any financial backing, just her own savings to fall back on.
Unlike today’s sporting celebrities, she didn’t have a manager to organise her career. She had to navigate her way through a man’s world, not only smashing the sporting glass ceiling, but developing skills as a businesswoman in order to negotiate swimming contracts.
Hers was an extreme sport. She tried for the maximum the human body could achieve. By doing so, she pushed back the boundaries of physical endurance, especially for women. During her six-month tour of South Africa in 1932, she performed all of her swims while pregnant. She gave birth to her first child on her return to England just three months after the end of the tour. This was a further example of Mercedes breaking through existing prejudices and challenging the perception of women as fragile human beings.
“Swimming is a beautiful thing”
Mercedes wasn’t possessive about her sporting talent. She encouraged others to master open water swimming. In her 1930 Diary of New Zealand Tour she wrote:
“Sea swimming is a beautiful thing, in fact an art – an art whose mistress should be not the few, but the many, for does not the sea and its dangers cross the paths of thousands? Nay, millions! What could possibly speak more for man’s prowess as an athlete than the ability to master earth’s most abundant, most powerful element – water, no matter what its mood.”
And when performing her endurance swims in front of thousands of spectators at corporation pools, she promoted the art of swimming to a wide audience of city-dwellers, while at the same time publicly demonstrating to women and girls that it was within them to be physically strong.
She remained true to her swimming aspirations
In 1934, already with one child and pregnant with a second, Mercedes disappeared from the public gaze, and settled down to become a housewife and mother. A few years after her third child was born, she was incapacitated by an inherited blood circulation disorder, and, to a lesser degree, arthritis in her knees.
After her retirement Mercedes deliberately shunned publicity, and as the years went by her exploits were eventually forgotten by the public. Her children knew, of course, that their mother had performed major swims in her youth, but it was only after her death in 1981, when they inherited photographs, letters, witness reports and newspaper cuttings stored away in her attic, that they realised what a major sporting icon she had been.
During her 10-year career, Mercedes remained true both to her swimming aspirations and to her desire to help destitute people. Her pioneering open water swims are numerous and well documented (English Channel, Strait of Gibraltar, Hellespont, Sea of Marmara, Firth of Forth, The Wash, Lough Neagh, Lough Foyle, Galway Bay, Cape Town to Robben Island and back, and so on) and she set the British record for endurance swimming at 47 hours. Her other legacy was the institution of The Mercedes Gleitze Homes for Destitute Men and Women in the city of Leicester in 1933, when she retired from swimming. The homes were destroyed by enemy action in 1940, but her trust fund is still being used today to help people in poverty.
Doloranda Pember is the daughter of Mercedes Gleitze. Her book In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze: Open Water Swimming Pioneer (Feb 2019) is out now.