1981- American swimmer Amanda Beard, the youngest swimmer on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team, became a national hero when she captured one gold and two silver medals at the Summer Games in Atlanta. Fans adored the spunky 14-year-old from California, who clutched a lucky teddy bear on the medal stand, and who swam to greatness with a youthful innocence. Although her swimming career slumped just followin…
1965- American swimmer Matt Biondi is one of the greatest competitive swimmers in history. Over the course of his career, he earned dozens of national, international, and collegiate titles and set twelve world records. He reached his zenith at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, where he won seven medals to tie the record set by swimming legend Mark Spitz in 1972. Biondi, Spitz, and shoo…
1963- American swimmer One of the greatest swimmers ever produced by the United States in terms of her versatility, Tracy Caulkins was at her peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Caulkins won a record 48 national championships, and set five world and 62 U.S. records. She was the first American to win a national title and set an American record in each of the four swimming strokes (backstroke, b…
1974- Hungarian swimmer Hungarian swimmer Krisztina Egerszegi is the youngest to ever win a gold medal in the Olympic Games. She won this medal at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea, in the 200 meter backstroke. Egerszegi won the gold in the same event in two subsequent Olympics, marking only the second time an athlete won golds in three consecutive games in the same event. She is also th…
1971- American swimmer The first American woman to win four individual Olympic gold medals in swimming, Janet Evans first took to the water while still in diapers. At the very tender age of one, Evans went into the water at the North Orange County YMCA pool, not far from her home in Placentia, California. By the time the diminutive (5 feet, 4 inches and 99 pounds) Evans was 17, she had set three w…
1964- American swimmer Olympic and championship swimmer Mary T. Meagher (pronounced MAW-her), known as Mary T. Meagher "Madame Butterfly," began setting world records in the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly swim as a young teen. Thwarted in her prime by the United States' 1980 Olympics boycott, Meagher one year later set world records in the butterfly that stood for ne…
1972- American swimmer In the early 1990s, American Summer Sanders was a dominant swimmer. She represented the United States at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, becoming a hero for her four medal-winning performance. She also won eight national championships. After her swimming career ended, Sanders became a broadcaster, working on a number of sports-related programs. Sanders was born…
1973- American swimmer With eight Olympic gold medals, the most ever awarded to an American woman, a stellar NCAA record, and world record-setting times in two events, Jenny Thompson was the most dominant American woman in swimming during the 1990s. Her career has been filled with many dramatic chapters, including medal-winning performances in relay events at three Olympic games and the failure to…
1982- Australian swimmer Athletes in the men's competitive swimming arena typically reach their physical peak just after the age of twenty. Yet while only a teenager Ian Thorpe repeatedly set and broke a number of world freestyle records. His accomplishments left the sports world in awe, as he repeatedly won gold medals in international competition. The 200-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle s…