Esther Williams

Although people had been competing in synchronized swimming since not long after the release of Bathing Beauty, and although it had been a demonstration sport at the Olympics since 1956, it did not become a medal event until 1984. The head of the International Olympic Committee during many of those years, Avery Brundage, did not consider something so pretty to be a real sport, and it was not until after his death that the Committee decided to make synchronized swimming a medal event. Williams returned to the public eye for the first time in twenty years around the time of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, acting as a television commentator for synchronized swimming events and being an honored guest at many of the special events celebrating the occasion.