WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NEWS / FUKUOKA: ISHOF 2023 Honor Coach Bob Bowman and Carol Capitani Eager to Lead Team USA at World Championships
by John Lohn, Swimming World Editor
Bob Bowman and Carol Capitani Eager to Lead Team USA at World Championships
When the United States arrives in Fukuoka, Japan for the World Championships, July 18-25, Bob Bowman and Carol Capitani will be charged with guiding the Red, White and Blue to the top of the medals table. As the Team USA head coaches, they’ll oversee the American training camp, finalize relay selections and provide advice to the U.S. athletes.
Bowman, the head man at Arizona State University, is no stranger to this responsibility, as he has previously served as the United States’ head coach at the Olympic Games and World Champs and has been an assistant coach on numerous occasions. The head women’s coach at the University of Texas, Capitani, meanwhile, will guide Team USA at the World Champs for the first time, although she was an assistant last year, and was the U.S. women’s head coach at the 2017 World University Games.
Here are some thoughts from Bowman and Capitani on their head-coaching roles:
BOB BOWMAN
On serving as head coach:
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
“It’s a tremendous honor and a huge responsibility. You want to see the country do well. I want to provide the best leadership I can and do things right. It’s a chance to give back to the young kids because I was fortunate to have been given opportunities (through the years).”
On what he has learned through the years:
“I’ve had the chance to learn from some great coaches: (Dennis) Pursley, (Mark) Schubert, (Frank) Busch, (Eddie) Reese and (Jack) Bauerle. They are the best at bringing teams to their best. You learn so much about coaching and working together. You see so much you think about bringing (home). We might stick with what got us there, but you pick up a lot of little things. It’s a great experience.”
CAROL CAPITANI
On serving as head coach:
“It’s always an honor to represent Team USA at any international competition, so I’m happy to be of service and lead this women’s team the best I can. There have been some amazing performances this summer, and I can’t wait to see the competition in Indy (June 27-July 1) to make the team. I learned a lot in Budapest last year in the company of Todd (DeSorbo), Anthony (Nesty) and all the talented coaches on staff, and look forward to working together with this team. It’s going to be fun and fast.”
On her goals for the team in Fukuoka:
“The goal for any USA team in international competition is to win the medal count. The team crushed it last summer, and I don’t see our vision or expectations changing. We’d really like to put up some great relays on the road to Paris, and I think we have the pieces to do that.”
Happy Birthday Karin Kuipers!!
Karin Kuipers (NED)
Honor Water Polo (2014)
FOR THE RECORD: 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold; 1994 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver; 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver; 1991 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver; 1993 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold; 1995 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: bronze; 1995 FINA World Cup: silver, 1997 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: bronze; 1999 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS: silver; 1991, 1993, 1997, 1999 WORLD CUP: gold; 1996 OLYMPIC TOURNAMENT; 1993, 1998,1999 VOTED BEST PLAYER IN THE WORLD
She was appointed Knight of the Order of Orang-Nassau in 2011, a chivalric order open to everyone who has earned special merits for society because of her great services to Dutch Water Polo. It is a grade comparable with the ranks of the Order of the British Empire in the UK.
Wearing her famous number 7, she started playing in the first division at the age of 14. She was three times voted the best player in the world; in 1993, 1998 ,1999, and played in over 1000 official games, scoring over 3000 goals during her career.
Her greatest years came before women’s water polo was added to the Olympic program, when her Dutch team was the best in the world and won either the gold or silver medal at every FINA world cup and FINA world championships from 1991 to 1999. Her team entered the 2000 Olympic Games as one of the favorites, but finished a disappointing fourth.
Now a mother of two, she competes in triathlons and competes with her old water polo friends in Dutch masters competitions.
Happy Birthday Cornel Marculescu!!
Cornel Marculescu (ROM)
Honor Contributor (2010)
FOR THE RECORD: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FINA: 1986 – Pres-ent; TECHNICAL DIRECTOR OF ROMANIAN SWIMMING FEDER-ATION: 1970-1980; HONORARY SECRETARY FINA TECHNICAL WATER POLO COMMITTEE: 1978-1980; TECHNICAL DIREC-TOR OF ROYAL SPANISH SWIMMING FEDERATION: 1980- 1986; MEMBER ROMANIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE: 2000-Present; IN-TERNATIONAL WATER POLO REFEREE: 1970-1980; MEMBER OF ROMANIAN NATIONAL WATER POLO TEAM PLAYING IN 165 INTERNATIONAL GAMES (1958 to 1970) PLACING FIFTH AT 1964 OLYMPIC GAMES
In 1986, FINA President Bob Helmick handpicked Cornel to take the helm of a permanent FINA Officein Lausanne. The workload had grown to a point where a professional office staff was needed and Cornel had the capacity to do the work of ten people. He has served as Executive Director with a sense of duty and dedication that has made him one of the busiest people in world sport. The results have been impressive.
He knows what it means to be an athlete, a coach, a referee and a manager – having experienced all of those worlds in water polo. He is a graduate of Bucharest’s Institute of Sport and Physical Education in Romania. He was a member of the Romanian National Water Polo Team, playing in 165 international games finishing5th at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He has taken part in every Olympic Games since Tokyo. He served as a water polo referee for ten years officiating the 1972 Olympic Gold Medal Game Final that ended in a 3-3 tie between Hungary and the Soviet Union.
Cornelio Miguel Marculescu Bulfon He speaks fluent English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Romanian. He served as Technical Director of the Romanian Swimming Federation and Honorary Secretary of the FINA Water Polo Committee. In 1980, he was chosen Technical Director of the Spanish Swimming Federation where he hosted the 1986 Madrid World Championships. He has served on FINA’s Development and Marketing Committees. Since 2007, he has been the Coordinator of the Water Polo World League and is FINA’s regular representative at sports forums throughout the world. Cornelio Miguel Marculescu Bulfon (ROM)2010 Honor Contributor.
Happy Birthday Brad Cooper!!
Brad Cooper (AUS)
Honor Swimmer (1994)
FOR THE RECORD: 1972 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (400m freestyle); TWO WORLD RECORDS: 400m, 800m freestyle; 1973 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (400m freestyle), bronze (1500m freestyle); 1974 COMMONWEALTH GAMES: gold (200m backstroke), silver (400m freestyle), bronze (100m backstroke).
The men’s 400 freestyle was swimming’s four minute barrier until it was broken in 1973. This classic of middle distance events had become an obsession for many of the great coaches and swimmers. Johnny Weissmuller first bettered five minutes in the 1920s. The ’50s brought Australian Murray Rose with two Olympic victories in the 400 in 1956 and 1960. He bettered the time to 4:13.4, but by 1967, just seven years later, 25 swimmers in the world had swam faster than 4:08.1 and a half dozen were within fractions of a second off the magic four minute barrier.
In the early ’70s, Brad Cooper of Australia was one of the most likely candidates. He broke the 400 free world record in 1972, but didn’t break the barrier. In one of the greatest freestyle races at the Munich Games, Brad Cooper, leading most of the final 200 meters, was out touched by Rick DeMont by one hundredth of a second. Due to Rick’s asthma medication, he was stripped of the gold medal, and it was awarded to Brad Cooper. Actually, Cooper’s time was an Olympic record on its own, and it was a bittersweet victory for Brad.
One year later in a rematch at the 1973 World Championships, Cooper, trailing DeMont, made a final burst of speed in the last 30 meters. DeMont wanted to win and got it, but they both broke the four minute barrier. Cooper took silver with a time of 3:58.70. He also won a bronze in the 1500 free.
Cooper’s versatility in the distance events was again proven one year later at the Commonwealth Games in 1974. Cooper, proving he still had it in him, won the gold in the 200 back, a silver in the 400 free and a bronze in the 100 back. From 200 to 1500 distances, Brad Cooper was a force to be reckoned with in all international events during the early 1970s.
During his career, Brad assembled two world records in the 400 and 800 free before retiring in 1974, shortly after his Commonwealth Games victories.
Happy Birthday Michelle Ford!!!
MICHELLE FORD (AUS) 1994 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: 1980 Olympic Games: gold (800m Freestyle), bronze (200m Butterfly); Two World Records (800m Freestyle); 1978 Commonwealth Games: gold (200m Butterfly), silver 400m and 800m Freestyle), bronze (200m Freestyle and 4x100m Free Relay); 1982 Commonwealth Games: gold (200m Butterfly), silver (800m Freestyle); Four Australian National Championships (200m Butterfly).
Crazy about the water since age four, she was touted as the coming superstar of Australian swimming, and at age 13 she broke nine records, six state and three national, all in three days. Two of those records were by Shane Gould and Jenny Turrall. That same year she earned a spot on the 1976 Olympic team, the second youngest Australian ever to do so. Just one year later, she set her first world record in the 800 freestyle. Little did she know her times in the 800 free would someday beat the times swum earlier by the immortal Murray Rose and John Konrads.
This blonde haired, blue eyed beauty continued her winning streak at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, taking a gold in the 200 butterfly, two silvers in the 400 and 800 free and two bronzes in the 200 free and 400 freestyle relay.
But Michelle Ford’s greatest memory is winning the gold medal in the 800 freestyle and bronze in the 200 butterfly in the Moscow 1980 Olympics. “Competing in the Olympics helped define everything I am today,” she said. Ford was named Amateur Athlete of the Year in 1980. Her name is cast in gold as the Australian women’s team has not won a gold in the Olympics since 1980.
Ford’s Olympic gold did not stop her. She went out hard and fast in the 1982 Commonwealth Games (her second) to take the gold in the 200 fly and silver in the 800 free. During the course of her career, she won four Australian National Championships.
Michelle Ford was a swimmer who made many coaches look great including Hall of Famer Don Talbot, Bill Sweetenham in Australia and Don Lamont at the University of Southern California. Michelle was elected to the International Olympic Committee Athletes Commission 12 person board and was a member of the Olympic Academy from 1984 to 1988. She retired from active competition in 1985 and two years later was invited to work with the Olympic Museum in Switzerland. In 1988 she edited the FINA learn to swim manual.
Ford has used her master’s degree in sports psychology to manage the growth and budgeting of 15 sports as the head of the University Association of Switzerland. Impacting three countries (Australia, Switzerland and the USA) her fluid and elegant style in and out of the water are her trademark.
Spectacular New ISHOF Video – from the old to the new !
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0vz1xfxvp9ut521/07102023_ISHOF_Rd3_REV2.mp4?dl=0
All of us at ISHOF are so excited about the new video that was just released and give to us. Please take a few minutes to watch it and share it with your friends. The new ISHOF is going to be spectacular!
Happy Birthday Tan Liangde!!
Tan Liangde (CHN)
Honor Diver (2000)
FOR THE RECORD: 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (3m springboard); 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (3m springboard); 1992 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (3m springboard); 1986 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (3m springboard); 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (3m springboard).
In 1982, at age sixteen, he joined the Chinese National team as a springboarddiver in Beijing and under the coaching of Xu Yiming, the National Team coach, he reviewed films of Greg Louganis, taken by Xu on his trips abroad. Little did this young Chinese diver and champion-to-be, Tan Liangde, know that when he hoarded these tapes of Louganis, he would soon be competing against this greatest diver in the world.
Tan first competed against Louganis at the FINA World Cup in 1983 and was beaten. Tan took the silver medal in the 3m springboard at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics the following year; Louganis won the gold. For the next four years, Louganis won 19 straight international springboard competitions; Tan always received the silver. But at two international invitations just before the 1988 Olympics, Tan beat Greg, the only two times he would beat the superstar. At the Seoul Olympics, Greg returned to defeat Liangde.
At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the gold medal again evaded Tan when Mark Lenzi (USA) won the springboard event. Just like when Hall of Fame diver Georgio Cagnotto (ITA) had the Olympic gold medal evade him throughout five Olympic Game competitions in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980, so did Tan Liangde meet the same fate.
But his longevity in the sport was overwhelming. He earned the silver medal in all of his major international competitions, as a result of competing against the great Louganis, a diver who was unbeatable during most of his career. In 1989, the very shy but confident Tan won the FINA World Cup and the Alamo Invitational. He was elected the 1989 Male Springboard Diver of the Year.
Throughout his ten years of international springboard diving competition, Tan was a consistently great diver who other divers tried to outscore but only a very, very few succeeded.
Happy Birthday Agnes Kovacs!!
Agnes Kovacs (HUN)
Honor Swimmer (2014)
FOR THE RECORD: 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: bronze (200m breaststroke); 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (200m breaststroke); 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m breaststroke); 2001 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m breaststroke), bronze (100m breaststroke); 1995 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (4x100m medley), bronze (100m breaststroke); 1997 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 1999 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 2000 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke), silver
(200m breaststroke); 2006 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: bronze (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 1999 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS (25m): silvr (50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke); 2002 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS (25m): bronze (100m breaststroke); two-time EUROPEAN SWIMMER OF THE YEAR: 1997 and 1998; HUNGARIAN SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR: 1997-2000.
Born in Budapest, Agnes Kovacs learned to swim when she was just two and a half years old, and loved the water from the very start. When she was just nine years old, her swimming teacher, Bea Szucs recommended she join the program at the Kőér St. Pool where she made rapid progress. At the age of 13 she had her first success in the Hungarian National Age Group Championships and as a fourteen year old, she won the European Junior Championship in the 100 yard breaststroke. Within days of her fifteenth birthday, she won the Olympic bronze medal in the 200 meter breaststroke in Atlanta, in 1996.
Following in the wake of Hall of Famer Krisztina Egerszegi, Agnes would be named Hungary’s best female swimmer and her country’s Sportswoman of the year for the next four years. Dominating the 200 meter breaststroke in all international competition from 1997 to 2000, she won gold at both the FINA World Championships in 1998, and then the Olympic gold medal, in Sydney, in 2000.
Following her Olympic success, Kovacs won her event again at the 2001 FINA Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, before moving to the United States to attend Arizona State University. When she left ASU in 2005 it was as a fifteen-time All-American, as the schools top senior female athlete, and with a degree in supply chain management.
Returning to Hungary, she rejoined the national team program and was a crowd favorite, winning three medals at the 2006 European Championships in the same pool where she first learned to swim twenty-two years earlier, on Budapest’s historic Margaret Island.
In addition to her Olympic and NCAA success, Agnes won a total of 25 medals at the European Championships, long and short course, and was a 53-time Hungarian National Champion from 1996 through 2007.
For Agnes, the support of her family was key to becoming a top level swimmer. She is currently married and lives with her husband and son in Hungary, where she is a PhD student at the Semmelweis University Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences.
2024 OLYMPIC GAMES: 2017 ISHOF HONOREE GEORGES VALLEREY ( POOL) (RE)JUMPS INTO THE DEEP END
re-shared: BY LUXUS +
Located in the 20th arrondissement, this pool was built in 1924 for the Paris Olympics. A century later, it is being renovated to welcome the athletes of the 2024 Olympics and to become a training site.
D-500 to go before the City of Light welcomes athletes from around the world for the 2024 Olympic Games. For the occasion, Paris is thinking big, and the capital is innovating and renovating. New buildings are coming out of the ground, while old buildings are being given a makeover. Like the Yves-du-Manoir stadium in Colombes, which hosted the 1938 World Cup final, the Georges Vallerey swimming pool is one of the sites that the city of Paris is recycling and renovating for the long-awaited Olympic Games.
Behind the building site structures and barriers, the establishment already displays the Olympic rings, symbols of these world-famous sporting events. And these colored rings, the Georges-Vallerey pool knows them well.
Georges-Vallerey complex
First Olympic pool
A century ago, the large pool of the Georges-Vallerey complex counted great exploits in its waters. Notably that of the American Johnny Weissmuller, three-time Olympic medalist, who later became Tarzan on the screen. In addition to these feats, it was avant-garde. It was, in France, the first Olympic pool with a 50-meter pool, which innovated by separating the pool into several lines, to create lanes.
A place full of nostalgia and victories, which unfortunately will not host new swimming events next year, due to a lack of seats in the stands. It will however be used as a training site before becoming an almost historical monument of the French capital.
A little rejuvenation
Inside, some 50 workers are working hard to complete the work in time for the beginning of next year. In addition to the floors, walls and everything in between of the building from the last century, the biggest part of the renovation concerns the swimming pool and especially the roof covering, which, since January, no longer exists!
This reconstruction was entrusted to the French architectural firm AIA architectes and led by Romain Viault, of the firm Architecte(s). A first construction site between 1986 and 1989 has already allowed the pool to change its cut, or rather its roof with a mechanism that allows to open and close it.
To go into a little more detail, the previous roof, which was made of larch wood will be replaced by Douglas, from forests in the Vosges and Jura. The new roof will be made of polycarbonate, a light and translucent plastic material with a high thermal resistance. This renovation, which will cost around 12 million euros, is financed in equal parts by the city of Paris and Solideo (the company responsible for delivering the Olympic facilities).
Eco-responsibility on the agenda
“Through this renovation project, there is also a very strong environmental and social ambition,” explains Flavie Anet, project manager for the operation within the steering and expertise division of the Paris City Council’s Youth and Sports Department.
A “green” and responsible renovation, since the city of Paris has decided to reuse the waste from the site such as iron, rubble or old installations to give them a second life.
For example, the wood from the old framework will be used to make furniture and signage, which will be placed in the renovated pool. The city of Paris has donated another part of the wood to the Extramuros association, a solidarity carpentry that reuses materials.
Other developments and solutions are currently underway, such as improving accessibility, particularly for the visually impaired, and air quality by renovating the ventilation system, as well as modernizing the lighting, which should reduce energy consumption by 40%.
The opening is scheduled for March 2024, for athletes who will have the chance to train in the footsteps, or rather in the “fathoms” of former medal winners. For Parisians, on the other hand, it will be necessary to wait until the end of the Olympic Games, i.e. around March 2025, to swim in the pool and enjoy the good weather and the sun on summer afternoons, thanks to the future new opening roof.
Read also >THE EVOLUTION OF THE MEDALS OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES
Featured photo : © AIA Architectes
GEORGES VALLEREY was inducted into ISHOF as an HONOR PIONEER SWIMMER in 2017.
Georges Vallerey
The information on this page was written the year of their induction.
FOR THE RECORD: 1948 OLYMPIC GAMES: bronze (100m backstroke); 1932 CROIX DE GUERRE AVEC ETOILE DE BRONZE (War Cross with Bronze Star); 1947 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m backstroke); MEMBER OF FRENCH WORLD RECORD SETTING MEDLEY RELAY
In the early morning hours of the 8th of November, 1942, an armada of American destroyers, aircraft carriers and troop ships carrying 35,000 American soldiers approached the Moroccan coast under cover of darkness. Their mission was to destroy the French fleet guarding the port of Casablanca and occupy the city. The defending French warships were outgunned by the American fleet and as the battle ensued, several French vessels retreated into the harbor while under attack, hoping to avoid being sunk at sea.
Watching the battle from the beach, which was taking place a few miles out to sea, was Georges Vallerey, Jr. Although he was only 15 years old and not even 5’8” tall, he was a very strong boy, with a Herculean build and could swim like an otter. Nicknamed “Yo-Yo”, he was born in France and moved with his family to Casablanca, in the French colony of Morocco. It was in Casablanca’s Piscine Municipal, the largest swimming pool in the world, where his father taught him and his four brothers and sister to swim. Georges was always ready to help others and when he was only eleven he made news, saving a young girl from drowning.
Standing on the beach, Georges saw a ship being hit by high-explosive shells some 300 meters off the shore. By tradition, many of the sailors did not know how to swim and he quickly realized that many were drowning as they abandoned the ship. Without any hesitation, he undressed, jumped into the water and began to swim to the ship, which was still being hit by bullets and shells, through water covered with burning oil. He would rescue a sailor, return to the beach with him, and immediately swim back out to the burning wreck. While the bombing continued he didn’t stop until he found a little boat on the beach, tied a rope around his waist and swam it out to the ship. By this method he saved scores more seamen.
For his heroics, he was decorated with the Croix de Guerre avec Etoile de Bronze (War Cross with Bronze Star).
Three years later, in 1946, Georges, by now a robust young adult, began his remarkable swimming career that saw him establish with Alfred Nakache and Alexandre Jany the world record for the 300m medley relay. By 1947, he was the best French swimmer in the 200m breaststroke, 100m and 200m backstroke and 400m freestyle.
The next year, at the London Olympic Games, he won the bronze medal in the 100m backstroke. Unfortunately, the medley relay was not part of the 1948 Olympic program. The next year America’s Allen Stack, the 100m backstroke Olympic champion at London, thinking that the Casablanca swimming pool was fast, wanted to try for the world record and asked Vallerey to accompany him. Vallerey won the race in a time faster than Stack’s winning Olympic time had been.
Then in December, he swam in a Christmas Cup, where the water was at 1° Celsius (34° Fahrenheit). He developed a throat infection, that would incapacitate him for four years and finally claim his life on October 4, 1954, in Casablanca, seventeen days before his twenty-seventh birthday. In his memory, the Les Tourelles Piscine, where the swimming events of the 1924 Olympic Games were held, was renamed Piscine Georges-Vallerey. Today the pool has been renovated and is one of the great pools of the world – a lasting tribute to a great swimmer and hero who died too young.
2023 ISHOF Honoree Podcast: Listen to the greatest Paralympian: Swimmer, TRISCHA ZORN
ISHOF has some great news that we are excited to share: The Ruling Sports Podcast featuring 2023 ISHOF Honor Paraplymic Swimmer, Trischa Zorn is now available for your listening pleasure on podcast! The host of The Ruling Sports Podcast said that the Trischa Zorn episode is outperforming her normal episodes!
The episodes are available wherever podcasts can be found but we have pulled the Trischa Zorn episodes on a few of the most popular platforms below for you:
Click and enjoy!
Apple Podcasts: 41. Trischa Zorn-Hudson – Most-Decorated Paralympian On Overcoming Stigma To Find Success
Spotify: 41. Trischa Zorn-Hudson – Most-Decorated Paralympian On Overcoming Stigma To Find Success
Come and be a part of Trischa’s induction, Saturday, September 30, 2023.
ISHOF to induct Trischa Zorn as first Paralympic Swmmer into ISHOF as part of the Class of 2023