13th -Born on this day in 1883 Leo “Budd” Goodwin, American swimmer, diver, and water polo player. He competed in the 1904 and 1908 Olympics, winning medals in all three disciplines. Goodwin nearly lost his arm after blood poisoning in 1906. Dr. Dave Hennen, a swimmer from his club and a famous surgeon, dissected his entire forearm while cleaning it from poison, then re-assembled the veins, muscles and ligaments. Goodwin quickly recovered, but not in time for the 1906 Olympics. At the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition Goodwin set an outdoor record by swimming 3½ miles in 1 hour 38 minutes in San Francisco Bay. He later received the Congressional Gold Medal, America’s highest peacetime award, for rescuing people from drowning at Newport News, Virginia. He retired from competition in 1922, but continued swimming through his seventies. In 1971 he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an “Honour Swimmer”. Nicholas Nerich, another American swimmer was born in 1893 and died aged 63 in 1957. Born in New York City, he swam for the New York Athletic Club in Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) competition. At the 1912 Olympics he reached the semi-finals of the 400m freestyle, and the quarter-finals of the 100m freestyle. Australian Tom Boast was born in 1905, he competed in the 100m backstroke at the 1928 Olympics. German Heinz Schlauch was born today in 1915, sadly he was killed in action, in the Lower Rhine just before the end of WWII, he was just 29 years old. Schlauch was the best German backstroke swimmer in the 100m at the 1936 Berlin Olympics finishing as ninth-best swimmer in the semi-finals but only the top eight qualified for the final. He was German Champion from 1937-39, and also the European Champion in 1938. Indonesian Habib Nasution was born in 1936 and represented his country in two events, the 100m and 40m freestyle at the 1956 Olympics, failing to progress from the first round in each case.  Born in Munich in 1950, Vreni Eberle, who competed in the 1968 and 1972 Games.  Salvadoran María Castro was born in 1953. She took part in the 100m breaststroke at the 1968 Olympics.  On this day in 1956 a new female World 200m Breaststroke Record was set by Ada den Hann of the Netherlands, stopping the clock at 2:46:4. Born in Switzerland today in 1965, Marie-Thérèse Armentero, she won 50m freestyle bronze at the 1986 World Aquatics Championships and competed at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics as part of the Swiss 4x100m medley relay team. During 1986–88 she was studying and training at the University of Toronto. There she swam the fastest ever 50m freestyle race in Canada, setting a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) record that stood for some 18 years. She also won a silver medal at the 1987 Summer Universiade and nine Ontario Women’s Interuniversity Athletic Association (OWIAA) and seven CIS titles. In 1988, she was chosen the CIS Female Swimmer of the Year. After her retirement, she competed in masters competitions and in 2003 set a European 50m freestyle record. In 2006, she was inducted to the University of Toronto Sports Hall of Fame. Irish swimmer Richard Gheel was born in 1968, he raced for his country at the 1988 Olympics, competing in 200m freestyle and 100m and 200m backstroke. Australian breaststroke swimmer of Aboriginal descent, Samantha Riley was born on this day in 1972. She competed for Australia in the 1992 and 1996 Games, winning three medals in total. Having been advised as a child to begin swimming to combat asthma, the Brisbane schoolgirl broke into the Australian team for the 1991 World Championships in Perth, winning silver in the medley relay. The following year, she took the Olympic 100m breaststroke bronze, as well as competing in the 200m. In 1994, she won both breaststroke events at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, repeating the feat at the 1994 World Championships and setting a world 100m breaststroke record of 1:07.69. This prompted Swimming World magazine to name her as the Female World Swimmer of the Year. Having continued to sweep all before he in 1995 she arrived at the 1996 Games under the cloud of a doping controversy. She had failed a drug test, and was only exonerated after her coach Scott Volkers admitted to giving her a headache tablet which contained the banned substance. Under the pressure of the controversy, Riley performed well outside her personal best times, which would have been enough for gold. She collected a bronze in the 100m breaststroke, and silverin the 4x100m. Riley never stood on the podium again as an individual at world level, but maintained her position in the Australian squad. Many anticipated her to return to her peak at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, but a kidney infection disrupted her training and she was ousted from the team at the Selection Trials by 14-year-old prodigy Leisel Jones. She left the pool in tears, and subsequently retired. American swimmer and water-polo player of the 1904 Games Henry Jamison “Jam” Handy died aged 97 today in 1983. Also a leader in audio and visual communication he was noted for the number of training films he produced over the years. As a swimmer, Handy introduced a number of new swimming strokes to Americans, such as the Australian crawl. He would often wake up early and devise new strokes to give him an edge over other swimmers. He won bronze in the 1904 Olympics and 20 years later he again claimed bronze as part of the Illinois Athletic Club water polo team at the 1924 Games, breaking the record for longest period of time between first and last competition. Born today in 1987, American Olympic gold medallist and former world record holder Dana Vollmer.  At the 2004 Olympics, she won a gold medal as a member of the winning United States4×200m freestyle relay team, setting the world record for the event. Eight years later at the 2012 London Games, Vollmer set a world record on her way to the100m butterfly and also won golds in the 4×100m medley relay and 4×200mr freestyle relay. She won three medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Vollmer won a total of 32 medals in major international competitions, including 19 gold medals, eight silver, and five bronze, spanning the Olympics, the World Championships, the Pan American Games, the Pan Pacific Championships, and the Goodwill Games. Canadian Olympic and World Champion Victor Davis died aged 25 today in 1989.  As a boy, Davis learned how to swim in the lakes around his home. During his career, Davis held several world records as the winner of 31 national titles and 16 medals in international competition. At the 1982 world championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador, he set his first world record while winning 200m breaststroke gold. At the 1984 LA Olympics he won 100m breaststroke silver and gold in the 200m event, establishing another world record in the process. In recognition of his accomplishments, Davis was named Swimming Canada’s Athlete of the Year three times and the Canadian government made him a Member of the Order of Canada. He retired from competitive swimming in July 1989 and a few months later, while outside a nightclub in Montreal, he was struck by a car whose driver fled the scene. It was later determined that, due to an earlier verbal altercation with the driver, Davis had walked to the middle of the road and was brandishing a bottle toward the car at the time he was struck. Two days later, the 25-year-old died of his injuries in hospital. In Guelph Ontario, the city named the 50m swimming pool in honour of Davis.

 

14th-Born on this day in 1881, French swimmer and water-polo player René Pierre Charles Tartara, he died aged 40 in1922 aged 40. He competed at the 1900 Olympics in water polo and 200m team swimming race, winning bronze in the swimming event.  British swimmer Ernest Parker was born in 1895. He raced for his country in the 200m breaststroke at the1920 Olympics where he was placed 6th in the second heat. He died at the aged of 70 in 1965. Eugène Kuborn was born in 1902, a Luxembourgian swimmer, he competed in the100m backstroke at the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, in the 1928 Games he was also a member of the water-polo team. He passed away on 12th February 1991at the age of 88. The name Björn Borg was also famous in the swimming world in the 1930s. Born in 1919 this earlier Björn Borg competed at the 1936 Olympics in both the 100m backstroke and as a team member of the Swedish 4x200m freestyle team, who finished 8th. He was victorious in the 400m and 1500m freestyle at the 1938 Europeans and was awarded the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal the same year. In 1959 he moved to Switzerland where he worked as a businessman and died in Zurich aged 89 in 2009.  Japanese freestyle swimmer Atsushi Tani was born in 1933. He competed in two events at the 1956 Olympics; the 100m free and the 4x200m freestyle relay. The Japanese team were placed 4th in the final, the Australian team winning gold in a new world record time. A new women’s 400m freestyle world record was set today in 1937 by Denmark’s Ragnhild Hveger of 5:12:4. Phan Hữu Dong was born in Vietnam today in 1938. He competed at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics, in the 100m freestyle. German butterflier Heidi Eisenschmidt, later Zimmermann was born in 1941.She represented Germany in the 100m butterfly at the 1960 Olympics, but failed to reach the final. She won three national titles between 1958 and 1960 in the now discontinued 4×100m backstroke relay. Her daughter Kathrin Zimmermann also competed in the pool at the 1988 Summer Olympics, where she won a silver medal.  Italian Olympic swimmer Marco Dell’Uomo was born in 1961, she competed in the1984 Olympics in 200 and 400m freestyle. Also born today in 1966, Polish swimmer, Dorota Chylak, who swam 100m and 200m breaststroke at the 1988 Games. Mark Andrew Henderson. American Olympic champion and former world record holder was born in 1969. As well as an Olympic gold medallist, he is a three-time World champion, two-time Pan American Games champion, four-time Pan Pacific champion and five-time US National champion. He competed at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, where he swam the butterfly leg of the gold medal 4×100m medley relay, which set the world, Olympic, American, and U.S. Open records. At the US Olympic Trials in 1992, Henderson entered the meet ranked 2nd in the world in the 100m butterfly, but concentrated too much on his competition and took out his race much too fast (under world record pace at the 50m mark). He led the race to the final 10 meters where he “bonked” and dropped from first to seventh place. Henderson returned to competition after an 8-month retirement with a vengeance. In 1993, he won gold at the US Open and Summer US Nationals and another two gold medals at the Pan Pacific Championships. He finished his comeback year with a gold and two silvers at the inaugural Short Course World Championships in Palma, Majorca. On his retirement Henderson worked in the financial industry concentrating on Japan and US equities. He retired from Wall Street in 2016 and is started a company called The Athletes Village which is building a platform to motivate and enhance the sports experience for youth athletes, their parents and coaches by connecting them through a Q&A/Search platform with elite athletes and experts in all the fields of sports (coaching, parenting, nutrition, psychology, strength training, injury prevention, etc.)  Born today in 1995, Maldivian swimmer Ahmed Husam. At the 2012 Olympics, he competed in the 100m freestyle, finishing in 53rd place overall in the heats, failing to qualify for the in semi-finals. Paul Biedermann set a new 400m short course freestyle world record today at the 2009 World Cup in Berlin, stopping the clock at 3:32:77. Another six world records were set at the same meet, they were 50m breaststroke of 25.25 by Cameron can der Burgh of South Africa, this record is still the short course world record. Germany’s Steffen Deible established a new record for 50m butterfly at 21:80, again this is the current short course record.  The short 100m IM, which is of course only able to be swum in a 25m pool, had a new mark of 50.95s set by Sergey Fesikov of Russia. For the women Shiho Sakia from Japan established a world mark of 2:00:18 for the 200m backstroke, while Australia’s Leisel Jones lowered the world 100m breaststroke record to 1:03:00 and finally American Jessica Hardy broke the 50m breaststroke record swimming the event in 28:80.

15th -Sandra von Giese, Filipino swimmer, was born in 1939. She competed in the 100m butterfly at the 1960 Olympics. She is the younger sister of Jocelyn von Giese who competed in the 100m backstroke at the 1956 Games.  Kazuyuki Iwamoto was born today in 1946 in Japan.  He represented his country in the 1500m freestyle at the 1964 Summer Olympics. German freestyler Holger Kirschke, who swam 1500m at the 1964 Games, was born in 1947.Born today in 1955 in the Netherlands was Abdul Karim Ressang. He took part in the 1976   Olympics, swimming 200 m backstroke and as part of the 4×200 m freestyle relay, where the team where pkaced 6th. He also won a national title in the 100m freestyle in 1975 and set about 15 national records in backstroke, freestyle and medley events between 1974 and 1976. Australian Robert John Nay, born today in 1956, competed in the 1972 Munich Olympics, but failed to reach the finals. His daughter Meagen Nay competed for Australia at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, coming seventh in the 200m backstroke. He was killed in a car accident on 7 November 1992. 1980 Russian Olympic 800m freestyler Oksana Komissarova was born in 1964. Between 1995 and 1999 she competed in the Masters category. She won a bronze medal at the world championships in 1996; she also won three national titles and set four national records. She was born in Volzhsky, near Volgograd and in 1982 moved to Kishinev, but then returned to Volzhsky. She has five children, born between 1987 and 2007, and works as a sports instructor for children. German Stefan Pfeiffer, born in Hamburg in 1965, who at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, won 150m freestyle bronze.  Four years later at the 1988 Games Pfeiffer earned another medal, this time silver, in the same event. Karen Dieffenthaler was born today in 1967, from Trinidad and Tobago, she competed in three events at the 1988 Olympics – 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle.  Former competitive Australian swimmer Giaan Rooney, was born on this day in 1982. As a member of the Australian team in 4×100m medley relay, she won Olympic gold and broke a world record at the 2004 Olympics. Her career began at 11 at the Miami club in Queensland, where she was coached by Denis Cotterell. Training partners there included Grant Hackett and Daniel Kowalski. In 2002 she moved to Melbourne, coached by Ian Pope at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre where her training partners included Matt Welsh, Michael Klim and Brett Hawke. Rooney made her international swimming debut for Australia at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, where she won a gold medal in the 100m backstroke as a 15-year-old. Rooney was also part of Australia’s gold-medal winning 4×100m medley relay team at the 1998 Games. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney Rooney won two silver medals as a part of the 4×200m freestyle relay and 4×100m medley relay. In 2001 she claimed the world champion title in the 200m freestyle, winning at the 2001 Fukuoka World Swimming Championships in Japan. This event was also widely remembered for the disqualification of the Australian women’s team after they jumped in the water to celebrate apparent victory in the 4×200m freestyle relay: the team of Elka Graham, Petria Thomas and Linda Mackenzie joined anchor swimmer Rooney in the water to celebrate their win, but as it was before all other competitors had finished the event, they were disqualified. Rooney competed in the 2002 Commonwealth Games, winning silver in the 4×200m freestyle relay and bronze in the 100m backstroke. In 2004 Rooney won a gold medal in world record time at the 2004 Olympics in the women’s 4×100m medley Relay. Rooney swam a personal best and new Australian record time of 1:01.18 to help Australia to the gold – the maiden victory by Australia in this event in Olympic history. After the withdrawal of Grant Hackett from the 2006 Commonwealth Games due to injury, Rooney was appointed as the captain of the national swimming team. She won a silver medal behind teammate Sophie Edington in the 100m backstroke, and qualified fastest for the 50m backstroke. However, she was upset by Edington by 0.01 of a second, again winning a silver medal. There is, however, conjecture about that official result with video suggesting Rooney touched first but did not activate the timing pad immediately. Rooney retired from competitive swimming after this meet. American Shannon Vreeland was born in 1991. An Olympic gold medallist. She was a member of the 2012 United States Olympic team, and won a gold medal in the 4×200m freestyle relay at the 2012 London Olympics. Vreeland had won a total of 19 medals in major international competitions, including 13 gold medals, three silver, and three bronze, spanning the Olympics, World Championships, Pan Pacific Championships, and Summer Universiade. Vreeland retired after the 2016 Olympic Trials and began attending law school at Vanderbilt University in 2016.  At the 2008 World Cup Short Course meet in Berlin a number of new world records were established; Randall Bal of America lowering the 50m backstroke time to 22.87s and fellow countryman Peter Marshall set a new record in the 100m backstroke of 49.63s. Australian Marieke Guehrer stopped the clock in the 50m butterfly at 24.99, the first person under 25 seconds in the short course event.. A year later at the same meet in 2009 new world records were set by Germany’s Paul Biedermann in the 200m freestyle, his time of 1:39:37 still remains unbeaten,  Arkady Vyatchanin of Russia claimed the 200m backstroke record, hitting the pads at 1:46.11 and  South African Cameron van der Burgh set a new 100m breaststroke time. Other records during this 2009 short course meet were by Japanese swimmer Shiho Sakai, lowering the women’s 100m backstroke record to 55:23, Australian Leisel Jones set a new time of 2:15:42 for the 200m breaststroke and in the same distance but in butterfly Chinese swimmer Lio Zige set a time of 2:00:78.  Two new female IM records were established, by Hinkelien Schreude of the Netherlands – 57:74 in the 100m IM and  in the longer 200 event South African Darian Townsend lowered that time to 1:51:55.  Finally for this meet Yevgeny Korotyshkin from Russia claimed a new 100, butterfly record of 48:48. At the French National Championships in Angers on this day in 2012 Yannick Agnel delighted the crowd with a new 400m freestyle world record, which is still his today of 3:32:25s.

       

 

16th -On this day in 1892 László Beleznal was born in Budapest. This Hungarian water polo player and freestyle swimmer died in 1953 aged 60. He was a member of the Hungarian water polo team, which competed in the 1912 Olympics. He was also a member of the Hungarian 4x200m freestyle relay team, which qualified for the final, but he did not compete. In the 100m freestyle event, he qualified for the quarter-finals, but did not compete. He was also known as Breslayer. Born today in 1928 in Brazil was Edith Grobade de Oliveira Olympic back-stroker who competed at two Summer Olympics for her native country. At 19 years old, she competed at the 1948 Olympics, in London, where she swam the 100m backstroke, not reaching the finals. At 23 years old, she was at the 1952 Games, again swimming 100m backstroke and again not reaching the finals. Swedish freestyler Erik Lester Eriksson was born on this day in 1942. He won two bronze relay medals at the 1966 European Aquatics Championships.  He competed at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics in seven events with the best achievement being a fifth place in the 4 × 200m freestyle relay. On this day in 1945 Yury Suzdaltsev was born in Russia, he competed in two events at the 1968 Summer Olympics, the 100m butterfly where he finished sixth and won a Bornze medal as part of the Soviet Union 4x100m IM relay team. Today in 1968 the American Olympic gold medaliist and former world record holder Melvin Monroe Stewart, Jr was born. At the1988 Olympics in Seoul, Stewart came fifth in the 200m butterfly with a time of 1:59.19. Following Seoul, Stewart began dominating the event. At the 1987, 1989, and 1991 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships Stewart won gold in the 200m butterfly. At the 1991 World Championships in Perth, Stewart won gold in the 200m butterfly setting a new world record with a time of 1:55.69. At the 1992 Olympics he won the 200m butterfly in an Olympic record time of 1:56.26. Stewart also won gold in the 4×100m medley relay by swimming in the heats, and a bronze in the 4×200m freestyle relay. Stewart is the co-founder and publisher of the swimming news website, SwimSwam.com, and a producer-director of commercials through his company, Gold Medal Media, LLC. In addition, he is currently an ambassador to the United States Swimming Foundation. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Tiffany, and their daughter Bayley. One of the most well-known Russian swimmer Aleksandr Popov was born on this day in 1971. Widely considered the greatest sprint swimmer in history, Popov won gold in the 50m and 100m freestyle at the 1992 Olympics and repeated the feat at the 1996 Olympics, and is the only male in Olympic games history to defend both titles.  He held the world record in the 50m for eight years, and the 100m for six. In 2003, aged 31, he won 50m and 100m gold at the 2003 World Championships. Popov began swimming at age 8 at the Children and Youth Sports School of Fakel Sports Complex in Lesnoy, at that time afraid of water. However, his father insisted on him taking swimming lessons in that sports school, and in his own words, he has “been stuck there ever since”. Popov started out as a backstroker but switched to freestyle when he joined Gennadi Touretski’s squad in 1990 on the initiative by the Head Coach of the USSR National Team Gleb Petrov. He later moved from Russia to Australia to be with his coach. Popov won the men’s 50m and 100m freestyle in theBarcelona Olympics in 1992, and repeated his victories in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, becoming the first man to do so since Johnny Weissmuller. One month after the Atlanta Olympics, he was stabbed in the abdomen with a knife during a dispute with three Moscow street vendors. The knife sliced his artery, grazed one of his kidneys and damaged the pleura, the membrane that encases the lungs. He had emergency surgery and spent three months in rehabilitation. At the 1997 European Championships in Seville, he successfully defended his 50m and 100m freestyle titles. In the 2003 Barcelona World Championships, Popov once again made a clean sweep of the men’s 50m and 100m freestyle events. He announced his participation in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Moreover, he was the Flagbearer of Russia in the opening ceremony. However, being the oldest competitor at the pool, the gold medal eluded him, and he did not even manage to make it into the finals of either the 50m or 100m freestyle. He announced his retirement from the sport in January 2005. Joe Hudepohl, American three-time Olympic medallist and former world record holder was born in 1973.Hudepohl was the youngest member of the 1992 United States swimming team and competed at the 1992 Olympics, where he won a gold medal as a member of the victorious400m freestyle relay team, and earned a bronze medal as part of the 4×200m freestyle relay team. Hudepohl also represented the United States at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he won a gold medal as a member of the 4×200m freestyle relay team. Hudepohl’s Olympic accomplishments followed a collegiate and prep swimming career. He was named National High School Swimmer of the Year in 1992 and won multiple NCAA championships while competing for Stanford University. He was also a member of two American record relay teams and part of a world record 400m freestyle relay team at the 1995 Pan Pacific Championships. He presently resides in Tampa, Florida, where he works in the Growth Equities team of Logan Circle Partners, L.P., the traditional asset management arm of Fortress Investment Group. Born today in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands today in 1976, Martijn Zuijdweg, he was a member of the Dutch 4×200m freestyle relay team that won the bronze medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Britta Steffen, born in 1983 and is a German competitive swimmer who specializes in freestyle sprint racing. In 1999, Steffen won six titles at the European Junior Championships, and won a medal as a member of Germany’s relay team in the 4×200m freestyle at the 2000 Olympics. In 2004, she asked to swim the 4×100m relay. At the 2006 European Championships in Budapest, Steffen clocked 53.30 in the women’s 100m freestyle, breaking the world record and upstaging the previous record of 53.42 set by Libby Lenton of Australia. Even though Lenton swam a time of 52.99 on 4 April 2007 during the mixed 400m freestyle relay, this time was not recognized by the FINA as world record, because the race was not considered to be a FINA event. At the same championships, Steffen was part of two world record-breaking relay teams. First, the German 4×100m women’s relay team o Dallmann, Goetz, Steffen and Liebs took the Australian 4×100m freestyle relay world record of 3:35.94, clocking a time of 3:35.22. The German women’s relay team of Dallman, Samulski, Steffen and Liebs, then swam a time of 7:50.82 to take the previous US 4×200m freestyle relay world record that stood at 7:53.42. At the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne where she finished third in the 100m freestyle and second in the4×200m freestyle relay. During the 2008 Games she won the 100m freestyle. Steffen then edged out Dara Torres to win the 50m freestyle gold with a time of 24.06 seconds, winning by 0.01 seconds. At the 2009 World Championships she clocked 52.07 for the 100m freestyle breaking the world record and upstaging the previous record of 52.22 set by herself four days before. Two days later on 2nd August 2009, Steffen won her second title in the 50m freestyle, breaking the world record with a time of 23.73 seconds. Her 100m freestyle long course world record was broken by Cate Campbell on 2nd July 2016. Her 50m freestyle long course world record was broken by Sarah Sjöström on 2nd 9 July 2017.at the FINA World Cup short coure meet in Berlin, home swimmer Paul Biedermann set a new world men’s 200m freestyle of 1:40:83s. French freestyle swimmer Camille Muffat swam to a new 800m freestyle short course record at the French National competition on Agners on this day in 2012.

 

                    

 

17th-Born on this day in 1878, American water-polo player and swimmer Augustus M. Goessling, who represented the US at the 1904 and 1908 Olympics. He died aged 84 in August 1963. In the 1904 Gamess he won a bronze medal as a member of the Missouri Athletic Club water polo team and four years later was eliminated in the first rounds of the 100m backstroke and 200m breaststroke. South African Kathleen Russell was born today in1912, as a member of the South African relay team she won bronze in the 4×100m freestyle relay at the 1928 Olympics. She also competed in the 400m freestyle, but was eliminated in the semi-finals. At the 1934 Empire Games she won silver with the South African team in the 4×100 yards freestyle relay. Today in 1929 saw the birth in Rio de Janeiro of Olympian Aram Boghossian. At the 1948 Olympics in London, the Brazilian team finished 8th in the 4×200m freestyle final. Boghossian also swam the 100m freestyle, finishing 14th in the semi-finals. He broke the Brazilian record for 100m freestyle in 1948., which stood until 1956 when it was broken by Haroldo Lara. At the inaugural Pan American Games in 1951, in Buenos Aires, he won a silver medal in the 4×200m freestyle, along with Ricardo Capanema João Gonçalves Filho, and Tetsuo Okamoto. In the 1952 Olympics he swam in the 100m freestyle and 4×200m freestyle, failing to reach the finals in both cases.  British swimmer Christine Gosden was born in 1939, she won a bronze medal in the 4×100m medley relay at the 1958 European Aquatics Championships and gold with a world record time in the 4×110-yard medley relay at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. She competed in the 200m breaststroke at the 1956 and 1960 Olympics, finishing eighth in 1956. Michael Wenden freom Australia was born on this day in 1949, he represented his country in both the 1968 and 1972 Olympics. In 1968 he won four medals: gold in both the 100- and 200m freestyle (setting world records in each) and a silver and a bronze in freestyle relays.  Wenden was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1979 and was one of the eight bearers of the Olympic Flag at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. His daughter Karen Baildon (née Wenden) competed in swimming at the Queensland state level and won the 1989 Miss Universe Miss Photogenic title, she  is married to Olympic swimmer Andrew Baildon. Dubbed the most successful backstroke swimmer of all time, East-German swimmer Roland Matthes was born in 1950. Matthes won the 100 and 200m backstroke at both the 1968 and 1972 Games, making him the most successful of all Olympic backstroke swimmers. He also won two silver and one bronze medals in the relays and added his eighth Olympic medal (a bronze) in the 1976 100m backstroke. He set 16 world backstroke records (seven at 100m and nine at 200m), but was also a world class performer in other events, winning silver medals at the European Championships in the freestyle and butterfly and setting three European butterfly records. Matthes was undefeated from 1967 to 1974 in the backstroke, he was eventually defeated by American John Naber, who succeeded him as Olympic backstroke champion in 1976. Matthes also won the backstroke double at the 1970 and 1974 European Championships and the 1973 World Championships, and won 15 individual national titles in various events. He was briefly married to East German Olympic swimmer Kornelia Ender. The issue of doping in East Germany brought into questioning most achievements of East German athletes. However, Matthes denied any involvement in doping, claiming that his swimming club was too small to be part of the government system. Ukranian Olympic swimmer Serhiy Krasyuk was born today in 1961.  He won a gold and silver medal at the 1980 Olympics in the 4×100m medley and 4×200m freestyle relays, respectively; in both events he swam for the Soviet Union team in the heats. Individually he finished in sixth place in the 100m freestyle. After the Olympics, he won several medals at the world and European championships. He missed the 1984 Olympics due to the boycott by the Soviet Union and competed in the Friendship Games instead, winning a gold, silver and bronze medal. Another Ukranian Oleksiy Boryslavskiy was born in 1968, he won his only international tournament medal in the 1988 Olympic 4×100 freestyle relay. Domestically, Boryslavskiy never won an individual Soviet title, but won four relay titles: 1988-89 4x50m freestyle relay, and 1989-90 4x100m freestyle relay. He also won 4x100m freestyle relay silvers in 1987, 1988 and 1991 and 100m freestyle bronzes in 1989 and 1990 at the Soviet championships. Ryk Neethling, the first South African to compete in four successive Olympic Games, was born on this day in 1977.He won Olympic gold in the 4×100m freestyle relay at the 2004 Games and three individual golds at the 2006 FINA World Championships in Shanghai. Nine time NCAA Champion and 1999 NCAA Swimmer of the Year. He is the former joint owner of the 4×100m freestyle relay world record and broke the 100m Individual Medley World Record three times in 2005. Born in Bloemfontein, he attended Grey College, where he excelled in swimming, earning a place in the South African swimming team for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he came fifth in the 1500m freestyle. Immediately following the Games he was enrolled at The University of Arizona, where he further cemented his swimming reputation, earning a numerous awards and accolades, including being the nine times NCAA National Champion, Arizona Athlete of the Year and PAC-10 Athlete of the Year for four consecutive years, 1999 NCAA Swimmer of the Year, and the University of Arizona Athlete of the Century award. He continued his international career at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, winning silver in the 1500m freestyle, but only managing fifth at the 1998 World Aquatics Championships. In 1999 he had a much better Pan Pacific Championships winning silver in the 1500m freestyle, and bronze in the 400m and 200m freestyle. After achieving a disappointing 5th in the 1500m freestyle event and 8th in the 400m freestyle at the 2000 Olympics, he elected to discontinue competing in the 1500m event, concentrating instead on the 50m and 100m freestyle events. He is the only men’s swimmer in Olympic history to swim in the 100 to 1500m freestyle finals At the 2002 Commonwealth Games he won a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle and came 4th in the 50m freestyle events. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games he won silver in the 100m freestyle and was part of the SA gold medal winning 4×100m freestyle relay team. He currently holds the South African record in the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle events, and recently held 4×100m freestyle relay world record. He also broke three world records in the 100m individual medley. The highlight of his career thus far has been winning a gold medal in the 4×100m freestyle relay at the 2004 Olympics. He also came 4th in the individual 100m freestyle. In November 2005, he announced that he had refused a multimillion-dollar offer by Qatar’s Olympic body to switch nationalities and swim for Qatar at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The 4×100m freestyle relay world record was subsequently broken in 2006 by the United States. Born in Zimbabwe today in 1982, Heather Brand, a freestyle and butterfly swimmer, she claimed a total of five medals (three silver and two bronze) at the 2007 All-Africa Games in Algiers and eventually represented her nation in the 100m butterfly at the 2008 Olympics. Apart from her medal treasury, Brand also established five long and short-course national records in all butterfly events at a major international competition, spanning three editions of the World Championships. She competed for Zimbabwe in the 100m butterfly at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and set a Zimbabwean record of 1:00.61 to capture the 100m butterfly crown and slide under the FINA B-cut (1:01.43) by nearly a full second at the All-Africa Games one year earlier. Swimming on the outside in heat three, Brand wound up last in a disappointing 1:01.39, over two seconds behind the leader Birgit Koschischek of Austria. Brand failed to advance to the semi-finals, as she placed 42nd overall out of 49 swimmers in the heats. Brand is the former captain of the LSU swimming team and a graduate of wildlife management at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She is also a resident athlete of King Aquatic Club in Federal Way, Washington, where she trained with numerous world-class swimmers, including Margaret Hoelzer and Megan Jendrick of the United States (both of whom were Olympic medallists), and Svetlana Karpeeva, an individual medley specialist from Russia. Born today in 1983, Australian Olympic gold medallist and former world record holder Jodie Clare Henry.  At the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Henry won the women’s 100m freestyle as well as being a member of the Australian teams that won both the 4×100m freestyle relay and the 4×100m medley relay. Later that year, she won silver at the Pan Pacific Championships in the 50- and 100m freestyle, and helped Australian teams to victory over the Americans in the freestyle and medley relays. In 2003, Henry won the 100m silver medal, and picked up bronze medals in both the 4×100m freestyle and 4×100m medley relays at the FINA World Championships in Barcelona. She was also named the Speedo female sprinter of the year for 2003. At the 2004 Olympics, she anchored the Australian 4×100m freestyle relay team that won the gold in world record time. She then competed in the individual 100m freestyle, breaking the previous world record time of 53.66 seconds (set by team member Libby Lenton) with a time of 53.52 in the semi-finals, going on to claim the gold in the final, the first Australian to do so since Dawn Fraser 40 years earlier. In her final race at Athens she swam the last leg of the 4×100m medley relay, again helping the Australian team win gold in world record time, leaving her with three gold medals and three world records. Henry won 100m freestyle gold at the 2005 World Championships in Montreal, clocking 54.18. That win came on top of her leadoff role in Australia’s victorious 4×100m freestyle team and second relay gold as a heat swimmer in the 4×100m medley. Lenton broke Henry’s world record at the Commonwealth Games selection trials, setting a new mark of 53.42. She finished with silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, finishing behind compatriot Lenton in the 50m and 100m freestyle and swimming in the 4×100m freestyle relay, helping Australia to the gold medal. At the 2007 World Aquatics Championships she claimed gold again. Combining with Shayne Reese, rookie Melanie Schlanger and Libby Lenton, Henry anchored the Australian 4×100m freestyle team in a world championship record time of 3:35.48, ahead of the USA and the Netherlands. She also won another gold medal in the 4×100m medley relay. She was unable to qualify for the 2008 Summer Olympics because of a pelvic complaint and on 30th September 2009 she announced her retirement from swimming. British swimmer Gemma Spofforth was born today in 1987. She represented Great Britain in the Olympics, FINA world championships and European championships, and England in the Commonwealth Games. Spofforth is the former world record-holder and former world champion in the 100m backstroke, and won a total of eight medals in major international championships. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing she came in fourth in the 100m backstroke, 0.04 of a second behind bronze medallist Margaret Hoelzer and was ninth in the 200m backstroke. At the 2009 World Aquatic Championships in Rome, she took gold in the 100m backstroke, in a world record time of 58.12. Spofforth broke the 100m backstroke world record on her way to winning her first world title in Rome, her time of 58.12 erased previous record holder Anastasia Zuyeva’s time of 58.48 set in the semi-finals. Spofforth accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida where she swam for coach Gregg Troy’s Florida Gators swimming and diving team in National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and Southeastern Conference(SEC) competition from 2007 to 2010. During her four seasons of American college swimming, she won seven NCAA national championships, including three titles in the 100yard backstroke (2008, 2009, 2010), three in the 200yard backstroke (2007, 2008, 2009), and one in the 200yard freestyle relay (2010), and was a key contributor to the Gators winning the NCAA national team championship in 2010. She received eleven All-American honours and four All-SEC selections, was a two-time SEC champion, and set two SEC records. She was a member of Great Britain’s 2012 Olympic team, and competed in the 100m backstroke at the 2012 Olympics in London, where she achieved fifth place in 59.20. After the 2012 Olympics, Spofforth announced her retirement from competitive swimming. Today in 2007  at the FINA World Cup Short Course Meet in Berlin Sweden’s Stefan Nystrand set a new 100m freestyle word record of 45:83 and Marleen Veldhuis, representing The Netherlands lowered the women’s 50m freestyle world record to 25.58.

 

 

18th –Born on this day in 1887, English Olympic swimmer Sydney Battersby. At the 1908 Olympics hosted by London, he won a silver medal in the 1500m freestyle, finishing second with a time of 22:51.2, behind fellow Briton Henry Taylor and ahead of Australian Frank Beaurepaire, he also reached the semi-finals in the 400m freestyle. Four years later at the 1912 Olympics he won a bronze medal as a member of the third-place British team in the 4×200m relay, and reached the semi-finals of the 400m and 1500m freestyle. During the course of his competitive swimming career, Battersby set four world records in freestyle events, including the 400m, 330yard, 440yard and one-mile distances. Battersby had a reputation for physical toughness; at the 1908 Olympics, he continued to swim at the end of the 1500m event – a shorter distance than the imperial mile – in an attempt to break the world record for the mile freestyle. He fell short of the world record, but did set a new British national mark. He was born near Wigan and died in Sydney, Australia on 3rd September 1974 aged 86. He was posthumously inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an “Honour Swimmer” in 2007. Austrian Fritzi Löwy was born today in 1910, at 13 she was already a youth champion and in 1925, when she was 14 she became the Austrian swimming champion. In 1927 she set a European record in the 200m freestyle.  She won 400m freestyle bronze at the 1927 European Aquatics Championships, and competed in the same discipline at the 1928 Olympics, but did not reach the finals. Until the 2000s, she and Hedy Bienenfeld remained the only Austrians to win a swimming medal, Bienenfeld finishing third in the 200m breaststroke at the same 1927 European Aquatics Championships. Löwy was the youngest of seven children. In the 1920’s she started swimming in the Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna, and for several years after 1925 she was winning the annual five-mile open-water Austrian competition Quer durch Wien (Across Vienna). During the 1920s–30s she also collected nearly every national title in freestyle. Soon after the Anschluss between Germany and Austria in 1938 she fled from Jewish prosecutions first to Italy, and then to Switzerland and Australia. She returned to Vienna in 1949 and worked as a secretary.She was a rival of Bienenfeld, but they later became close friends, and Bienenfeld helped her financially around the 1960s when Löwy was fighting breast cancer, she died in March 1994, aged 83. Another swimmer of Jewish decent Alfred Nakache was born in 1915 in Constantine in French Algeria. A member of the French team for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, he also swam in the first post-war Summer Olympics in London in 1948. He is one of two Jewish athletes, as far as is known, to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust.Nakache was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1993. He was the subject of a French documentary in 2001, entitled Alfred Nakache, the Swimmer of Auschwitz. German swimmer Angela Franke was born on this day in 1957. She competed at the 1972 Games in the 400m individual medley, failing to reach the final. Between 1973 and 1975 she won two gold, two silver and one bronze medals in various freestyle and medley events at the world and European championships. In1973 she set a world record in the 400m IM and two weeks later, at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships, improved it to 5:00.37; but eventually lost it to her team mate Gudrun Wegner who swam 4:57.51. Surinamese Olympian Giovanni Linscheer was born today in 1972, he competed at the 1992 and 1996 Games. Linscheer held the national 50m freestyle record for 12-years until it was beaten by Renzo Tjon-A-Joe in 2013. His younger brother Enrico Linscheer also represented Suriname in swimming at the same two Olympics. Both Linscheer and his brother were educated in the United States, a The Bolles School in Jacksonville, then the University of Florida. At the 1991 Pan American Games he was a finalist in the 100m butterfly and freestyle, the two events he competed in at Olympic level. His first appearance at the Olympics came at Barcelona in 1992, at the age of 19. In the 100m freestyle he was fifth in his heat with a time of 51.82, which placed him 37th overall. He was also 37th overall in the 100m butterfly, sixth in his heat with 56.20. Countryman Anthony Nesty won the bronze medal in that event. He earned All-American honours while swimming for the Florida Gators in 1993-94, with a top eight finish in the 400yard relay at the NCAA Championships. In Atlanta in 1996 he competed in his second Olympics Games. He registered exactly the same time in the freestyle as he had at the previous Olympics and was second in his heat, 41st overall. In the butterfly he also finished second in his heat with a time of 56.09, which placed him in 40th position. Linscheer, who worked as a civil engineer, continued to live in Florida after his swimming career finished. In 2000 he died when his car was involved in a head-on collision in Boca Raton, he was driving a sport-utility vehicle that was heading the wrong way down the motorway with no headlights on and struck a Chevrolet van. The driver of the van was also killed. An investigation found that Linscheer had been intoxicated at the time and was driving on a suspended license. Matt Welsh, Australian, who is the former world champion in the backstroke and butterfly, was born today in 1976. He took two golds in 50m butterfly and 50m backstroke, during one hour, at the World Championships in Shanghai 2006. He retired from professional swimming in March 2008 when he failed to secure a place in the team for the Beijing Olympics.  Welsh started swimming in his final years at Scotch College, Melbourne and moved into competitive swimming in 1995 after leaving school at the age of eighteen. He trained under coach Ian Pope at the Melbourne Vicentre Club.  His first big break came in 1998 at the world swimming championships in Perth, Western Australia with a gold in the 4x100m medley relay. At 31 and after 11 years on the Australian Swim Team, Welsh was unable to beat the younger generation at the trials and was not selected to compete at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Welsh has won several world championship titles in both backstroke and butterfly. He first broke the Australian record in the 100m backstroke in 1998. He also won more Australian swimming titles than any swimmer in history, claiming his 50th win at the 2006 Australian titles in Brisbane in December 2006. American Olympic silver medallist Elaine Breeden Penrose née Breeden, was born in 1988. She qualified to compete in the 100m and 200m butterfly at the 2008 Olympics and at the Games themselves she made the semi-finals of the100m butterfly, and finished seventh in the final of the200mbutterfly. She also earned a silver medal by swimming for the second-place US. team in the heats of the 4×100m medley relay. Russian long-distance swimmer Larisa Ilchenko was born in 1988, she has won eight world titles and a gold at the 2008 Olympics. Ilchenko has dominated long distance swimming since her first World Championships in Dubai, 2004 where, aged just 16 won by over 30-seconds. The following year in Montreal, she had a much tougher time as the veterans pushed her under and held her up, but still won with a final sprint. This has been the pattern of all her subsequent victories, battling her way through the pack before sprinting clear at the end. She doubled up in Napoli 2006 to become both the 5km and 10km open water world champion. She has won both 5km and 10km events at all subsequent World Championships. The American magazine Swimming World named her open water swimmer of the year in 2006, 2007 and 2008. She won the 10km gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games, using her trademark closing kick after being behind the leaders for 9,900 meters of the swim. For this and other achievements, she was awarded the Order of Friendship in 2009. After sustaining an injury in 2009 and hypothermia at the 2010 World Open Water Swimming Championships, she de facto retired. In August 2012 she married a Russian swimmer Sergey Perunin. In September 2012 she was inducted to the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. Ahmed Kelly, Australian Paralympian was born today in 1991. He represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, and he competed at the 2012 London Paralympics. Nicknamed “Liquid Nails”, Kelly was born in Baghdad with a double arm and leg deficiency. Until the age of seven, he lived in at Baghdad’s Mother Teresa Orphanage with his brother, Emmanuel who has a similar disability. Humanitarian Moira Kelly met the brothers in 1998 and with her parents’ help, brought them to Victoria, Australia in 2000 to get medical care for their disability. Kelly’s treatment involved having parts of his legs removed and then being fitted with prosthesis. Moira adopted the brothers in 2000. In 2009, he became an Australian citizen. He was featured on the ABC’s “Race to London” and in 2013 he started university studying at La Trobe University in Melbourne and dreams of working in the media as a sports commentator in the future. Kelly played Australian rules football for a team in Kilmore, Victoria. When playing, he did not wear prosthetic arms. He played Australian Rules for his school’s Year 7/8 team. Kelly is an S4, SB3 (breaststroke), SM4 (individual medley) classified swimmer who has been based at the Melbourne Vicentre Swimming Club and coached by Brad Harris since 2009. He started swimming in 2008, after making a switch from Australian rules football. Kelly first represented Australia in 2009 at the Darwin, Northern Territory hosted Oceania Paralympic Championships. In 2009, he competed in the Arafura Games and also competed in the 2010 Australian National Championships, finishing first in the 100m breaststroke event in world record time. He repeated this feat in 2011 where he again set a world record, and represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in four events, his best being fourth in the 50m breaststroke SB3. At the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow, he competed in five events: 50m freestyle S4, 150m IM SM4, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke SB3 and 4 x 50m freestyle relay 20 Points. Kelly competed in four events at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. He came seventh in 50m breaststroke SB3 and sixth in Mixed 4 x 50m freestyle relay (20 points). He also competed in 50m backstroke S3 and 150m IM SM4 but didn’t progress to the final. Today at the 1999 World Cup Short Course meet in College Park, USA, American Neil Walker established a new time for the 50m backstroke of 24:12s. At the same meet feelow team-mates Lenny Krayzelburg and Jenny Thompson lowered the world records for the 200m backstroke (1:52:467) and the 50m butterfly (26:00) respectively. In 2007 at the FINA Short Course World Cup in Berlin , Sweden’s Stefan Nystrand swam to a new 50m freestyle world record of 20:93 and Brazilian Thiago Pereiro set the 200 IM mark to 1:53:14.

 

 

 

19th – On the day in 1956 the 4x100m medley relay team from the Netherlands, consisting of Lenie de Nijs, Rita Kroon, Atie Voorbij and Greekje Kraan established a new world record, stopping the clock at 4:54:3s.  Israeli Olympian Yoram Kochavy was born on this day in 1962. At the 1981 Maccabiah Games, he won a silver medal and two bronze medals. Kochavy competed for Israel at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles at the age of 21. Swimming in the 400m IM he came in 16th and in the 200m butterfly he came 22nd and 27th in the 200m IM. At the 1985 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, swimming for Denver University, Kochavy won gold medals in both the 200 and 400yards IM and the 200yard butterfly, and was the NAIA High Point Award Winner. His three titles that year still stand as a tie for the existing NAIA record for most individual swimming titles in a year. That year he also set the record for the university in the 200yard IM, which still stands, of 1:54.05, and set a record in the 400yard IM which stood until 2001. At the 1986 NAIA Championships, he again won the 200 yard IM. Australian Glenn Buchanan, former butterfly swimmer of the 1980s was born on this day in 1962. He won two bronze medals in the 100m butterfly and the 4x100m medley relay, at the 1984 Olympics. Pitted against the United States’ world record-holder Pablo Morales and West Germany’s Michael Gross, Buchanan swam at such a pace in a vain attempt to keep up that he broke the Australian record, finishing 0.77 of a second behind Gross, who set a new world record. Each of the first six finishers had improved their respective national records. Buchanan then combined with Mark Stockwell, Peter Evans and Mark Kerry to claim another bronze in the 4x100m medley relay. Buchanan continues to reside in Townsville and runs a swim school. Svetlana Varganova, Russian swimmer who won 20m breaststroke silver in the 1980 Olympics, was born in 1964. Australian Jessicah Schipper was born on this day in 1986. Schipper made her debut for Australia at the 2003 World Aquatics Championships in Barcelona, winning the bronze medal as part of the 4×100m medley relay team. In 2004, she competed in the 2004 Olympics, coming 4th in the 100m butterfly with the time of 58.22. She also collected the gold medal in the 4×100m medley relay, having swum the butterfly leg in the heats of the event. At the 2005 World Aquatics Championships in Montreal, she won the silver medal in the 200m butterfly with the time of 2:05.65, only 0.04 of a second behind Otylia Jędrzejczakof Poland, who set a new world record in the event. However, the race was overshadowed by the video replay showing that Jędrzejczak touched the finishing wall with only one hand, which is illegal under the butterfly rules. Doing so allows the swimmer to stretch out further with their single hand. Video replays cannot be used in appeals against race results. Schipper also won the gold in the 100m butterfly and in the 4×100m medley relay in doing so, she erased the Australian records in both the 100m and 200m butterfly. In 2006 Schipper wiped 0.08 of a second off her 100m butterfly (57.15) Commonwealth record to become the second fastest woman ever in the history of the event, surpassing Martina Moravcová. She won the gold medal in both the 100- and 200m butterfly, as well as the silver medal in 50m butterfly at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. She combined with Sophie Edington, Leisel Jones and Libby Lenton to set a new world record in the 4×100m medley relay, collecting her third gold medal of the meet. On 17th  August 2006, Schipper set a new world record in the women’s 200m butterfly, on the opening night of the 2006 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. Schipper won the final in 2:05.40, bettering the mark of 2:05.61 set by Otylia Jędrzejczak at the 2005 World Aquatics Championships. She qualified for the 100- and 200m butterfly events for the 2008 Games and won two bronze medals in her individual events, as well as the gold in the 4×100m medley relay. Following the Olympics, Schipper split with her coach Ken Wood. This came after Wood had sold Schipper’s training program to Chinese swimmer Liu Zige, who broke Schipper’s world record to take the 200-metre title. At the 2012 Olympics she again aualified for the 100m and 200m butterfly, but was eliminated in the heats of the 100m and after reaching the semi-finals in the longer event failed to make the final. Italian swimmer Alice Carpanese, who competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, representing her country in the 200m freestyle was born today in 1987. Butterfly swimmer Liliána Szilágyi was born in Hungary today in 1996. She collected two medals (gold and silver) in the 100 and 200m butterfly at the 2012 European Junior Swimming Championships in Antwerp, Belgium. Szilagyi is a member of Kőbánya Swimming Club in Budapest, and is coached and trained by Gyorgyi Turi. She has an impressive swimming ancestry as she is the daughter of three-time Olympian and former freestyle swimmer Zoltán Szilágyi (1988, 1992, and 2000). She is also the grand daughter of Desza‘ Gyarmati and Éva Székely. Her grandfather is often considered the greatest water poloist of all-time. His feat of winning water polo medals at five successive Olympic Games (gold 1952, 1956, 1964; silver 1948; bronze 1960) has never been matched. He also captained winning Hungarian teams at the 1954 and 1962 European Championships. He coached the Hungarian team that won the Olympic title in 1976, and also won medals in 1972 and 1980, and later became a member of Parliament. His wife Eva was the 1952 Olympic 200m breaststroke champion and the silver medallist at the 1956 Olympics. She held the first world record in the 400m individual medley in 1953. Liliána Szilagyi herself qualified for the 100m butterfly at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, via a FINA B-standard entry time of 59.07, gained at the European Championships in Debrecen. She competed with seven other swimmers in the third heat, including three-time Olympians Hannah Wilson of Hong Kong and former Olympic champion Otylia Jędrzejczak of Poland. She achieved sixth place ahead of Portugal’s Sara Oliveira by a tenth of a second in 1:00.34. Szilagyi failed to advance into the semi-finals, as she placed 34th overall on the first day of the heats. Australian Libby Lenton set a new short course 200m freestyle world record today in 2005 when she hit the pads at 1:53:29 at the FINA world cup meet at Sydney.