Passages 2019: Mourning Matthes, Mann, Troy, Wood, Tinkham, To, Higgs, Duenkel & More

PASSAGES

by CRAIG LORD – SWIMMING WORLD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

31 December 2019

If 2019 started with the news of coach Jim Wood‘s passing, it ended with the world of swimming mourning the loss of Roland Matthes, the most decorated Olympic backstroke champion in history, gone after a short, severe illness at 69 but never to be forgotten.

Photo Courtesy:

The day after news of Matthes’ passing at 69, John Naber, the man who at Montreal 1976 ended Roland’s reign as the supreme backstroke pioneer of pace, penned a moving tribute to his rival and then friend for life. Naber’s words and memories summed up a defining and enduring aspect of the swimming world: it is stacked with friendship and understanding that transcends the race, the politics and governance crisis that have long left the swimmers and swimming punching below their weight when it comes to recognition of their excellence in the wider world.

This year also marked the passing at 76 of Thompson Mann, Olympic medley relay champion for the USA champion who in 1964 became the first swimmer to break the minute over 100m backstroke. Just three years after his 59.6, Matthes clocked 58.4 for the first of his record seven 100m World records down to the 56.30sec in which he retained the first of his Olympic titles at Munich 1972.

Mike Troy – Photo Courtesy: International Swimming Hall of Fame

After a battle with mental illness, Brian Job, two-time Olympic swimmer for the USA, passed away at 67. Other Olympic podium placers lost this year included 200m butterfly champion for the GDR at a time of State Plan 14:25, Andrea Pollack, at 57 and Mike Troy, the 1960 200m butterfly champion for the USA, at 78. George Breen, a four-time Olympic medalist between the 1956 Games in Melbourne and the 1960 Games in Rome, died on Nov. 9 after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 84.

Water Polo lost a legend in István Szívós, at 71, while diving mourned Patty Elsener, who passed at 89.

Gone far too soon was Kenneth To, the former Australian International who switched to Hong Kong and became a national record holder. He died at just 26 years of age.

Among mentors lost were coaches James “Jim” Martin Wood, Gus Stager and Stan Tinkham from the United States and Mike Higgs of Britain, while the passing of Robert “Bob” Duenkel at 74 left the International Swimming Hall of Fame, where he had served as official historian, as well as the wider swimming world, in mourning.