Happy Birthday Vladimir Vasin!!
Vladimir Vasin (URS)
Honor Diver (1991)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1972 gold (3m springboard); EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1970 bronze (3m springboard); First Soviet diver to win an Olympic gold medal.
In 1972, Vladimir Vasin became the first Soviet diver to win a medal in the Olympic Games, capturing the gold medal in the three meter springboard competition. He beat the great Italian diver Georgio Cagnotto by only 2 1/2 points at a time when the Italian duo of Cagnotto and Dibiasi were the divers to beat.
Vasin made his Olympic debut at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, and also competed again in 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics. On the 10 meter platform in Mexico City, he injured his shoulder on the 10th dive, but went on to finish fifth. Between Mexico City and Munich, Vladimir competed internationally, which included a first place finish at the USA International meet in Fort Lauderdale.
Vladimir stayed in diving beyond his competitive days and served as a member of the Technical Diving Committee of FINA, as well as a leader for youth in many Soviet organizations, where he is considered a hero.
Happy Birthday David Theile!!
David Theile (AUS)
Honor Swimmer (1968)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1956 gold (100m backstroke); 1960 gold (100m backstroke), silver (4x100m medley relay); QUEENSLAND and AUSTRALIAN JR. CHAMPION: 1947; AUSTRALIAN SR. CHAMPION; 1955; AUSTRALIAN RECORDS: 1955 (100m backstroke).
Dr. David E. Theile is the only swimmer other than a freestyler to win gold medals in two successive Olympics since World War II. This Australian backstroker won gold medals in both the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games. He is currently lecturer in surgery at the London Hospital (England) after an honors academic record at the University of Queensland and a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons.
Dr. Theile began competitive swimming at 9, was Queensland and Australian Jr. Champion at 16, and began a five-year reign as Sr. Champion in 1955, at 17. When Thiele set the Australian 100 meter backstroke record at 1:07.4 in 1955, he was breaking a 17-year-old record set the year he was born (1:07.8 by Percy Oliver in 1938).
Thiele won the 100 meter backstroke crown at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in world and Olympic record time, 1:02.2. At Rome in 1960, he lowered his Olympic record to 1:01.9 for a second gold medal and was part of the Australian silver medal medley relay.
Currently living in London with his wife and two children, David Theile joins Murray Rose and Dawn Fraser as Australian contemporaries honored in the Hall of Fame. Together with John Devitt, Jon Hendricks, Kevin O’Halloran, Gary Chapman, Lorraine Crapp, Faith Leech, Terry Gathercole, John Monckton, the Konrads Kids and a host of others, the Aussie swimmers of this 1956-’60 period represented a return to the world swimming dominance which Australia maintained at the turn of the century when Barnie Kieran, Freddie Lane and the Cavills were dominating the record books with something called the Australian Crawl
Italian Supserstar Swimmer Federica Pellegrini & husband Matteo Giunta Announce Birth Of Baby Daughter
Article by Swimming World
by LIZ BYRNES – EUROPE CORRESPONDENT
03 January 2024, 10:26am
Federica Pellegrini & Matteo Giunta Announce Birth Of Baby Daughter
Two-time Olympic medallist Federica Pellegrini and Matteo Giunta have announced the birth of their daughter Matilde.
Matilde is the first child for the Italian couple who married in August 2022, months after Pellegrini retired from the sport following a long and illustrious career that spanned 17 years and five Olympics and which included 200 free gold and silver at Beijing 2008 and Athens 2004 respectively.
The 35-year-old also claimed six long-course world titles and seven European golds and her 200 free WR of 1:52.98 stood from the 2009 World Championships to July last year when Mollie O’Callaghan lowered it to 1:52.85 at the Fukuoka worlds.
In a post to social media, they said:
“Complicated 2 days….Finally you arrived !!!!
⏱️6:5103/01/2024
Matilde
“Thanks to the angels that cared for us during this journey, Titty, Marcello, Giada, Alessandra, Massimo and the entire team of the Sacred Heart hospital.”
Among those to congratulate them were Katinka Hosszu, Elena Di Liddo, World Aquatics and Juventus Football Club.
Happy Birthday Carolyn Schuler!!
Carolyn Schuler (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1989)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1960 gold (100m butterfly; relay); WORLD RECORDS: 1 (relay); AAU NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 3 (relay); AMERICAN RECORDS: 4 (100m butterfly; relays).
Carolyn Schuler, winner of two gold medals at the Rome Olympics was simply a case of a girl ready to swim. She had never won an individual National Championship. Often she was fourth in her favorite event, even on her own Berkeley Y Team, a remarkable group of only five girls, who twice won the A.A.U. National Championship. Her only American record was while swimming first on the medley relay in the long course Nationals. Yet she was always up there getting valuable team points and swimming her best times under pressure when team relays were depending on her.
At the 1960 U.S. Olympic Trials, her former teammate Ann Bancroft qualified first in the 100 meter butterfly but in the finals. Carolyn Schuyler beat her for second place by a finger tip and made the team.
Carolyn Wood had won the Olympic Trials and by the time they got to Rome there was still nothing to make Schuler the favorite over Wood. But the unexpected happened. Carolyn Schuler came through, first by winning the heats in an Olympic record qualifying time. Wood was still favored to beat her as were at least two other world class swimmers from the Netherlands & Australia. In a frenzied race the two Carolyns were stroke for stroke when Miss Wood suddenly grabbed the lane line. She had choked, swallowing too much water on the turn. Carolyn Schuler streaked to a meter victory over Marianne Hemmskerk breaking the Olympic record she had set in the heats. Her victory meant that she and not Wood would swim on the medley relay which was old stuff to team swimmer Schuler, who was used to winning on relays. They did and she did in world record time as Schuler again went under her Olympic record time to give Chris Von Saltza a lead after the butterfly leg. For the fourth time she set an American record as part of a 400 meter medley relay.
Her series of personal best times were 1:09.8 in the 100 meter butterfly heats, 1:09.5 in the finals and 1:08.9 in the relay
Throwback Thursday: South African 12-Year-Old WR Setter Karen Muir Was Overlooked Star
by JOHN LOHN – EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
04 January 2024, 03:11am
Throwback Thursday: South African 12-Year-Old WR Setter Karen Muir Was Overlooked Star
On occasion, we highlight athletes from the past who did not receive their proper recognition, due to no fault of their own. In this installment of the series, we examine the career of South African backstroker Karen Muir.
Mexico City should have been her stage. It should have offered her the opportunity for Olympic glory. It should have been the site of Karen Muir’s greatest accomplishment, the one accolade missing from the South African’s Hall of Fame career. Alas, the backstroke sensation could do nothing more than watch.
We’ve written before about the intersection of sports and politics, and the toxic reaction when they are mixed. In the case of Muir, the denial of an Olympic berth was connected to her homeland’s apartheid policies.
From 1964 through 1988, the International Olympic Committee banned South Africa from competing in the Games, due to the South African National Olympic Committee’s refusal to oppose apartheid practices. Among the athletes caught in the controversy was Muir, who was a rising star in the backstroke events.
Although she was not a factor to compete at the 1964 Olympics, the first Games in which South Africa was banned, she would have been a leading medal contender at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. That potential was realized in August 1965 when Muir stunningly set a world record in the 110 yard backstroke—at the mind-boggling age of 12 years, 10 months and 25 days.
Racing at the British National Championships as an international invitee, Muir clocked 1:08.7, a global standard in a swim that was supposed to be an experience-supplying outing. Muir is recognized as the youngest world record holder in history.
“It has been a bit too much, and I still cannot really believe that I am the holder of the world record,” Muir said of her breakthrough performance. “It’s like something out of a fairytale. Everyone has been very kind and wonderful, but I am glad that the fuss is finished. Now all I want to do is to forget all the fuss and get back to my schoolwork.”
If Muir thought the hoopla surrounding her would subside, she was mistaken. The pre-teen world record set by the South African simply launched her into the spotlight, as she maintained a steady presence among the world’s elite for the remainder of the 1960s. Over the course of her career, additional world records arrived in the 100 and 200 meter backstrokes, along with the 110 and 220 yard backstrokes, the latter events still common for the era. More, she set a global mark in the 440 yard individual medley, an effort that was a testament to her multi-stroke talent.
Yet, for as much as Muir could control during training and her competitive forays, she did not have any influence on what took place in sporting offices around the world or on governmental decisions. Consequently, when the 1968 Olympics were held, Muir was missing, her absence a sad footnote in history.
At the time of the Games, she was the world record holder in the 100 and 200 meter backstroke. Obviously, Muir would have challenged for gold in both events, the titles ultimately going to American Kaye Hall (100) and the USA’s Pokey Watson (200). Canadian Elaine Tanner, a friend and rival of Muir’s, was the silver medalist in each race.
In 1969, in what could be deemed as her response to missing the 1968 Olympics, Muir broke Hall’s world record in the 100 backstroke, touching the wall in 1:05.6. The record endured for four years—until it was broken by East Germany’s Ulrike Richter, who was later found to be part of her country’s systematic doping program.
A 1980 inductee to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, Muir set 17 world records before retiring in 1970 at the age of 18. In 2013 at 60, she passed away after a battle with cancer.
“I’m heartbroken,” Tanner said of Muir’s death. “It’s like a piece of me has died, too. She was very quiet, very reserved. That was her nature. She let her performance speak for her.”
Happy Birthday Patty Caretto!!
Patty Caretto (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1987)
FOR THE RECORD: WORLD RECORDS: 7 (800m, 1500m, 800yd, 1650yd freestyle; 1 relay); AAU NATIONALS: 5 (500yd, 1650yd, 1500m freestyle; 1 relay); AMERICAN RECORDS: (800yd, 1650yd, 400m, 1500m freestyle; 1 relay).
Patty Caretto revolutionized women’s swimming with her windmill stroke — a continuous arm turnover and a two beat kick…She was the second youngest, the shortest and the smallest “giant” to set a world record at 13 years old, 98 pounds and 5 feet 1 inch tall. Patty’s specialty was the 1500 meter freestyle (metric mile), a distance swum by women everywhere but in the Olympics.
She went from a national champion and a world record holder in the summer of 1964 to the high point winner at the U.S. Indoor Nationals in the Spring of 1965, but missed the 1964 Olympics in November because she failed in a 400 meter swim-off against three world record holders at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Ironically, again, the only younger world record holder ever was backstroker Karen Muir (12 years old) of South Africa who also missed the 1964 Olympics because her country was banned by the International Olympic Committee. These two world record holders got to meet and swim in the same pool the next winter when Patty and her coach Don Gambril toured South Africa giving clinics and demonstrations in 1965.
This five foot dynamo broke world records eight times in the 1500 and 800 meter freestyle beating several Hall of Famers en route. She was swimming’s “queen of the mile” and held American records from the quarter mile on up. Patty was a swimming workaholic, a role model for her coac
Happy Birthday Charles Silvia!!
Charles Silvia (USA)
Honor Contributor (1976)
FOR THE RECORD: U.S. National Collegiate record holder: 300yd individual medley; College All-American; Captain, Springfield College Swim Team; Multi-sports coach: New Hampton School; Wibraham Academy; New Haven YMCA; Springfield College (from 1937); Assistant Coach: 1956 U.S. Olympic Team; Developed 50 college swim coaches; His swimmers set 14 World Records; President, College Swimming Coaches Association of America; President, Board Chairman, ISHOF; Recipient of Collegiate & Scholastic Swimming Trophy; Honoree in Helms (Citizens Savings) Hall of Fame; Author of Life Saving & Water Safety Today.
Charles “Red” Silvia coached Bill Yorzyk in a 20 yd. pool and brought him from a non-swimmer freshman in college, to a graduate student with Pan-American and Olympic gold medals, 13 World Records in freestyle and butterfly, and US. National AAU Championships in butterfly and individual medley. Yorzyk won the USA’s only 1956 Olympic gold in men’s swimming. In 1973, Davis Hart, another of Sylvia’s swimmers, set the record for the English Channel. In addition to revolutionizing the dolphin-butterfly stroke in the mid-1950s, Sylvia, in the late 40s, was the first to embrace mouth-to-mouth insufflations, the method of choice for artificial respiration. In 1967 Coach Silvia had 37 of his former pupils as college swim coaches, many more as medical doctors. He is a prime example of the multiplication factor in education. He has used swimming as an effective medium for the development of human potential and sent his students out into life with a sense of social responsibility that includes propagating his teaching in every possible environment.
Happy Birthday Chris von Saltza!!
Chris von Saltza (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1966)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1960 gold (400m freestyle; 4x100m freestyle relay; 4x100m medley relay), silver (100m freestyle); WORLD RECORDS: 4; U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 32
Chris von Saltza was valedictorian of the first big group graduating from the Age-Group swim program. She held 4 world records and 32 American records in an era when FINA no longer accepted as world records our world’s fastest times done in the traditional American 25 yard (short course) pools.
Chris was picked as the outstanding girl swimmer of the 1960 Rome Olympics for her 3 gold medals and a silver. Her 4:44.5 world record for the 400 meter freestyle ended the domination by Australian girls in freestyle swimming and set standards ten seconds faster than the next fastest Americans were swimming. Earlier, she had been the first American girl to break 5 minutes.
While considered primarily a classic crawl swimmer, Chris also held the world record in the 200 meter backstroke. She won the maximum allotted four individual events plus relays in several U.S. Nationals, sparking her Santa Clara Swim Club to team victories. Her performances in 1960 were considerably ahead of the U.S. competition and helped spark the current renaissance in U.S. swimming.
An anxious mother once asked Chris’ doctor father how he could let his daughter swim so hard for so long, “Madam,” he said, “the longer the distance, the better the von Saltza.”
In route to the Olympics, Chris won five gold medals in the 1959 Pan American Games. Retiring one year after the 1960 Rome Olympics, Chris entered Stanford, majoring in Asian History. She took a leave of absence during 1963-64 to be a coach-consultant in Asia in the American Specialist Program under a State Department grant. She visited and taught competitive swimming in South Korea, the Philippines, South Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chris was an assistant chaperone-coach for the U.S. girls at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.
Happy Birthday Mark Schubert!!
Mark Schubert (USA)
Honor Coach (1997)
Ever since his college days as a swimmer and assistant coach at the University of Kentucky, he has had a fascination with fast, expensive sports cars. Now, his living is turning out fast swimmers. He likes speed and has turned his young swimmers into national and international speedster champions, creating one of the most impressive record books in the history of our sport.
Coach Dick Wells first introduced swimming to Mark Schubert at Harvey S. Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio, where, as a student, Mark swam the breaststroke and played trombone in the band. He attended Kentucky on a swimming scholarship, but served as assistant coach his last two years before working as swimming coach and teacher in the Cuyahoga Falls School District, Ohio for one year (1971-72).
In 1972, at the age of 23, he was offered the co-head coaching position with the Mission Viejo Nadadores Swim Team in California, directing a program of 55. The program grew to over 500 swimmers of all ages and abilities by 1985. Between 1972 and 1985 he amassed an AAU and USS Club National Championship record that proceeded to break Hall of Fame Coach George Haines’ Santa Clara Swim Club record of 43 national team championships. Mission Viejo won 44 team titles including 18 women’s team championships, 8 men’s team championships and 18 combined team championships.
While at Mission Viejo, his swimmers won 124 individual national championships, ten Olympic gold medals, six Olympic silver medals, one Olympic bronze medal, five individual World Championship titles, 88 American records and set 21 world records, all within a 13 year period. Schubert was named American Swimming Coaches Association, National Coach of the Year for 1975, 1976 and 1981. In 1981, for the first time in the history of swimming, his team captured all national team titles in one year, six team titles (men/women/combined), plus 15 individual national titles and 9 American records. One of his teams scored a record 1255 total points in the Nationals. His team competed internationally in Japan, Russia and other countries, conducting clinics and good will. If you add up the results of his swimmers competing in the 1979 Pan American Games, Mission Viejo would have finished 5th as a country.
In 1985, Mark moved from one Mission to another, directing the training and coaching of the Mission Bay Makos Swim Team in Boca Raton, Florida. During his three years there, his teams won another nine national team titles and placed three swimmers on the 1988 US Olympic Team, winning a silver medal.
Although Mark has been the most successful club coach in history, in 1989 he moved to the college coaching ranks as the University of Texas women’s coach, winning two NCAA Championships during his four year tenure. His Longhorn swimmers won 12 NCAA individual and eight relay titles, and Schubert was named 1990 NCAA Coach of the Year. As head coach of the Texas Aquatics Team during that time, his teams won another 10 USS national team titles.
Then it was back to California, taking the reigns of the women’s and men’s team from retired Hall of Fame coach Peter Daland at the University of Southern California. Since 1992, Schubert has established an impressive .822 winning percentage and placed in the NCAA top ten.
One of the world’s most highly respected coaches, Mark Schubert has served as US coach of many international traveling teams: 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1996 USA Olympic assistant coach and 1992 USA Olympic Head Women’s Coach – the most of any active US coach. He has been the 1978, 1986, 1991 and 1994 USA World Championship Assistant Coach and 1982 USA World Championship Head Coach.
His Olympic gold medal swimmers include Brian Goodell (1976), Shirley Babashoff (1976), Mary T. Meagher (1984), Tiffany Cohen (1984), Mike O’Brien (1984), Dara Torres (1984), Rich Saeger (1984), Janet Evans (1992), Brad Bridgewater (1996) and Kristine Quance (1996). Other Olympic swimmers include Casey Converse (1976), Maryanne Graham (1976), Nicole Kramer (1976), Marsha Morey (1976), Steve Barnicoat (1980), Jesse Vassallo (1980), Brian Goodell (1980), MaryBeth Linzmeier (1980), Dan Veatch (1988), Erika Hansen (1988), Susan Johnson (1988), Erika Hansen (1992), Lawrence Frostad (1992) and Janet Evans (1996). His world record holders include Goodell, Babashoff, Jesse Vassallo, Ricardo Prado, Alice Brown and Sippy Woodhead. His World Championships swimmers who medaled in competition include: Babashoff (1975), Goodell (1975), Valerie Lee (1975), Vassallo (1978) Dan Veatch (1986) Mike O’Brien (1986), Lee Ann Fetter (1991), Janet Evans (1994) and Kristine Quance (1994). Other swimmers who have made the teams from 1973 through 1994: Peggy Tosdal, Mary Beth Linzmeyer, Bill Barret, Robin Leamey, Steve Barnicoat, Whitney Hedgepeth, Jodi Wilson, Beth Barr, Erika Hansen and Lawrence Frostad.
In his 25 years of coaching, Schubert has placed 22 swimmers on US Olympic teams, winning twelve gold, seven silver and one bronze medal. They have broken 21 world records, 97 American records and have won 160 US national individual titles with 65 national team titles.
Mark knows how to bring out the best in each swimmer. His long-time assistant, Jack Roach, said, “Mark knows how to orchestrate a work out. He utilizes all parts of the facility at one time and everyone from staff to the youngest swimmer feels involved and important.” Coach Dick Wells says, “It is his ability to transfer the technical aspects of the sport to the swimmer. The amount of work he can get out of each swimmer and himself is phenomenal.” Mark would say to his swimmer, “You’re not going to fail for lack of training.”; a philosophy he placed upon himself, too. Mark has a hard-nosed, no-nonsense reputation that carried over into the success of his swimmers. As Brian Goodell put it, “Everything I learned from him, I carried over into my everyday life.”
Mark lives with his wife Joke, who has served as US Team Manager for numerous international trips, and two children, Tatum (20) and Leigh (18), both swimmers.
Mark has served on various USS administrative committees including Steering, Olympic Operations and Technical Planning as well as the ASCA Board of Directors and the College Swim Coaches Association of America Vice President.
Happy Birthday Don Gambril!!
Don Gambril (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1983)
FOR THE RECORD: 1984 U.S. Olympic Coach; Assistant U.S. Olympic Coach: 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980; Assistant Coach: 1978 World Championships; Coach of 1977 World University Games; Head coach at the University of Alabama beginning 1971; His career record from 1966-1982: 4 NAAU team championships; 1 NCAA College Division Championship; 4 times finished in the top 5 NCAA Championships; 178 wins and 22 losses in dual meets; 114 of his swimmers received All-American honors; His swimmers held at least 10 World Records.
The United States head Olympic swim coach for 1984 has served his apprenticeship on every level of swim coaching. Known throughout the world for his ability to work harmoniously with star swimmers and coaches alike, Don Gambril has been a member of the U.S. Olympic coaching staff five times in ’68, ’72, ’76, ’80 and ’84 following the great success of his swimmers in ’64. It was just after the Tokyo Olympics that he was named “Coach of the Year” by his 2,000 peers in the American Swim Coaches Association. 16 years later, he was elected the President of this largest swim coaching body in the world. Gambril has always paid his dues, serving as a member of the USOC, the AAU Men’s and Women’s Swim Committees, USS Board of Directors, NCAA Swimming Rules Committee. He has coached at City of Commerce, Pasadena City College, Philips 66 Long Beach, Long Beach State University and Harvard before coming to Alabama.
Among his famous swimmers are Hall of Famers Sharon Stouder (USA), and Gunnar Larsson (Sweden), who have won a total of 5 Olympic gold medals between them. He is also credited with developing Jonty Skinner, the supreme sprinter from South Africa who was denied the Olympics because of politics. The President of U.S. Swimming (Ross Wales) and the head coaches at Stanford (Skip Kenney), Arizona (Dick Jochums) and UCLA (Ron Ballatore) are among Don’s former swimmers and assistants who have hit the top along with Olympic team members from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Germany, Brazil and ten other nations.