Today I reached 31,000 laps, 775,000 yards and 440.36 miles, in the past 23 months since I started counting. Swimming has been great exercise for me after my tennis days ended over eight years ago. It has helped with any arthritis pains I suffered with and other ailments. It keeps my weight down and I can eat quite normally and I sleep through the night. I suggest to all of you, get in a pool and start a regular regimen.
Listed below are some of the historical greats that the public became well aware of as they electrified the public with their exploits and careers
Duke Kahanamoku (was born on August 24, 1890 – and died January 22, 1968) was a Hawaiian competition swimmer, who learned and revolutionized the Australian crawl and the wall turns, and popularized the sport of surfing. A Native Hawaiian, he was born to a minor noble family less than three years before the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He lived to see the territory’s statehood. He was a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming, winning medals in 1912, 1920 and 1924. Kahanamoku performed in Hollywood as a background actor and a character actor in several films. He made connections in this way with people who could further publicize the sport of surfing. Kahanamoku was involved with the Los Angeles Athletic Club, acting as a lifeguard and competing in both swimming and water polo teams. He was the first person to be inducted into both the Swimming Hall of Fame and the Surfing Hall of Fame. The Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surfing Championships in Hawaii, the first major professional surfing contest event ever held in the huge surf on the North Shore of Oahu, was named in his honor. He is a member of the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.
Johnny Weissmuller (was born in Hungary, on June 4, 1904 and died January 20, 1984) was an American Olympic swimmer, water polo player and actor. He was known for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century. He set numerous world records alongside winning five gold medals in the Olympics. He won the 100m freestyle and the 4 × 200 m relay. He is renowned for his impressive swimming career, which includes 52 US National Championship titles, and 67 world records. He competed at the Paris Games in 1924 and the Amsterdam Games in 1928 and won gold medals in the 100m freestyle and the 4 x 200m relay team events at both games. He also brought home gold in the 400m freestyle and a bronze medal in the water polo competition at the Paris Games. In 1927, Weissmuller set a new world record of 51.0 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle, which stood for 17 years. He improved it to 48.5 seconds at Billy Rose World’s Fair Aquacade in 1940, aged 36, but this result was discounted, as he was competing as a professional. As a member of the U.S. men’s national water polo team, he won a bronze medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics. He also competed in the 1928 Olympics, where the U.S. team finished in seventh place. In 1950, he was selected by the Associated Press as the greatest swimmer of the first half of the 20th century. He was a well-known actor in Hollywood and television. Following his retirement from swimming, Weissmuller played Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ Tarzan in twelve feature films from 1932 to 1948. Weissmuller went on to star in sixteen Jungle Jim movies over an eight year period, then filmed 26 additional half-hour episodes of the Jungle Jim TV series. Weissmuller saved many peoples’ lives throughout his own life. One very notable instance was in 1927: whilst training for the Chicago Marathon, Weissmuller saved 11 people from drowning after a boat accident. On July 28, 1927, sixteen children, ten women, and one man drowned, when the Favorite, a small excursion boat cruising from Lincoln Park to Municipal Pier (Navy Pier), capsized half a mile off North Avenue in a sudden, heavy squall. Seventy-five women and children and a half dozen men sank with the boat when it tipped over, but rescuers saved over fifty of them. Weissmuller was one of the Chicago lifeguards who saved many.
Gertrude Caroline Ederle (October 23, 1906 – November 30, 2003) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Among other nicknames, the press sometimes called her “Queen.” Gertrude Ederle made history when she became the first female to cross the English Channel. Unfortunately, she lost her sense of hearing while achieving the feat and later devoted herself to coaching deaf swimmers. She also won 2 bronze medals and a relay gold medal at the 1924 Paris Olympics. Despite the foul conditions she was able to swim the Channel two hours faster than the five men who had accomplished it earlier.
Clarence Linden Crabbe II (was born February 7, 1908 – and died April 23, 1983), known professionally as Buster Crabbe, was an American two-time Olympic swimmer and film and television actor. He was USC’s first All-American swimmer (1931) and a 1931 NCAA freestyle titlist. He won the 1932 Olympic gold medal for 400-meter freestyle swimming event, which launched his career on the silver screen and later television. He starred in a variety of popular feature films and movie serials released between 1933 and the 1950s, portraying the top three syndicated comic-strip heroes of the 1930s: Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers. I was an avid watcher of the three Flash Gordon serials.
Esther Williams (was born August 8, 1921 died June 6, 2013) was an American actress, competitive swimmer, and businesswoman. When she couldn’t realize her dream of participating in the 1940 Summer Olympics due to the outbreak of the Second World War, Williams went on to establish herself as an actress. She gained national recognition after playing Annette Kellerman in Million Dollar Mermaid and helped popularize swimming in the USA. She actually was in many GM films before they discovered she could swim!
Dawn Fraser (September 4, 1937- is an Australian freestyle champion swimmer. She won the Olympic individual event the women’s 100-meter freestyle three times in her career. She also won six Commonwealth Games gold medals. Much respected for her athletic abilities, she was also known for her controversial behavior. She became a swimming coach after her retirement. She is also a former politician. She was the first woman swimmer I was aware of as a teenager.
Donald Arthur Schollander (born April 30, 1946) is an American former competition swimmer, five-time Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in four events. He won a total of five gold medals and one silver medal at the 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics. As a teenager in 1962, He moved to Santa Clara, California to train under swim coach George Haines of the Santa Clara Swim Club. Two years later at the age of 18, he won three freestyle events at the AAU national championships. He made the U.S. Olympic team in two individual events and two relays. Months later, he won four gold medals and set three world records at the 1964 Summer Olympics, at the time the most medals won by an American since Jesse Owens in 1936. His success helped earn him the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States, and the AP Athlete of the Year. He was also named ABC‘s Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, he won another gold medal in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay, but finished second in the 200-meter freestyle, the event that he had considered to be his best. This was the first Olympics in which 200-meter swimming events were part of the competition. Following the 1968 Olympics, he retired from competitive swimming.
Diana Nyad (born August 22, 1949) is an American journalist, author, long-distance swimmer, and motivational speaker. She achieved national recognition when she swam around Manhattan in 1975. Nyad made headlines again in 1979 when she swam from Bimini to Juno Beach. In 1986, Diana Nyad was inducted into of the US National Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. On the morning of August 31, 2013, at age 64,, Nyad began her fifth bid to swim from Havana, Cuba to Florida, a distance of about 110 miles (180 km), accompanied by a 35-person support team, swimming without a shark cage, but protected from jellyfish by a silicone mask, a full bodysuit, gloves and booties. At approximately 1:55 pm EDT on September 2, 2013, Nyad reached the beach in Key West, about 53 hours after she began her journey. Though there were questions about her effort, it was never disproved. The New York Times public editor observed on September 19, that the focus had shifted from serious questions about possibly resting aboard a boat, to more technical issues relating to whether her crews’ touching her while helping with her protective suit formally rendered the swim an “assisted” swim.
Mark Andrew Spitz (born February 10, 1950) is an American former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion. He was the most successful competitor at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, winning seven gold medals, each in world-record time. This achievement set a record that lasted for 36 years until it was taken by fellow American Michael Phelps when he won eight gold medals in Beijing at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Mark Spitz won a plethora of medals and titles during his time, including nine Olympic golds, a silver, and a bronze; 31 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) titles; five Pan American gold medals, and eight National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) titles. He also held 35 world records between 1968 and 1972 and his international swimming awards include World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971, and 1972. Spitz went to work for ABC Sports in 1976 and worked on many sports presentations, including coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles figure except perhaps as a commentator for swimming events like the 2004 Summer Olympics. Spitz mow focuses on his real estate company in Beverly Hills and hobbies such as sailing.
Shane Gould (was born on November 4, 1956) Three-time Olympic gold medalist Shane Gould was 15 when she participated in the Munich Olympics. She stunned everyone with her early retirement at 16 and stayed away from the limelight for 25 years, eventually re-emerging after raising her four kids on an Australian farm and then breaking records at the 2000 Sydney Games.
Matt Biondi (was born on October 8, 1965) is a former American swimmer and eleven-time Olympic medalist. Biondi competed in three Olympic Games (1984, 1988, and 1992) and won a total of 11 medals, including eight gold, two silver, and one bronze medals. He was a world record-holder in five events and set three individual world records in the 50-meter freestyle and four in the 100-meter freestyle at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.
Janet Evans (was born on August 28, 1971) Janet Evans is an American retired competitive swimmer who won three gold medals at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. A former world record-holder, Evans went on to win another gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. The winner of the prestigious James E. Sullivan Award, Evans was adjudged Female World Swimmer of the Year in 1987, 1989, and 1990.
Jenny Thompson (was born on February 26, 1973) Known for winning more Olympic medals than any other female in the swimming category, Jenny Thompson had started swimming at age 7. She grew up to win swimming medals for Stanford University. She is also a qualified doctor and has practiced as an anesthesiologist and surgeon.
Natalie Coughlin (born Aug 23, 1982) is an American retired competitive swimmer. A 12-time Olympic medalist, Coughlin became the first American female athlete in the history of the modern Olympics to win six medals in one Olympics event at the 2008 Summer Olympics. She also became the first woman to win gold medals in two successive Olympics, she won the medals in the 100-meter backstroke event.
Ian Thorpe (was born on October 13, 1982) At the age of 14, Thorpe became the youngest male ever to represent Australia, and his victory in the 400 meter freestyle at the 1998 Perth World Championships made him the youngest-ever individual male World Champion. After that victory, Thorpe dominated the 400 m freestyle, winning the event at every Olympic, World, Commonwealth and Pan Pacific Swimming Championships until his break after the 2004 Olympics in Athens. At the 2001 World Aquatics Championships, he became the first person to win six gold medals in one World Championship. Aside from 13 individual long-course world records, Thorpe anchored the Australian relay teams, numbering the victories in the 4 × 100 m and the 4 × 200 m freestyle relays in Sydney among his five relay world records. His wins in the 200 m and 400 m and his bronze in the 100 m freestyle at the 2004 Summer Olympics made him the only male to have won medals in the 100–200–400combination. He acquired the nickname “Thorpedo” because of his speed in swimming. Thorpe announced his retirement from competitive swimming in November 2006, citing waning motivation, he made a brief comeback in 2011 and 2012. In total, Thorpe has won eleven World Championship gold medals; this is the fifth-highest number of gold medals won by any male swimmer. Thorpe was the first person to have been named Swimming World Swimmer of the Year four times, and was the Australian Swimmer of the Year from 1999 to 2003. His athletic achievements made him one of Australia’s most popular athletes, and he was recognized as the Young Australian of the Year in 2000
Michael Fred Phelps II (born June 30, 1985) is an American former competitive swimmer. He is the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals (23), Olympic gold medals in individual events (13) Phelps is undoubtedly the world’s greatest swimmer of all time. Nicknamed “The Baltimore Bullet” Phelps is the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time with a grand total of 28 medals. He holds the records for most Olympic gold medals won in individual events; most Olympic medals won in individual events; and most Olympic medals overall. He won six gold and two bronze medals at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, tying the record for eight medals in total at a single Olympic Games. When he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, he broke American swimmer Mark Spitz’s long-standing record of winning seven events in a single Olympic Games, which he achieved at the Munich Games in 1972.He won four gold and two silver medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and five gold medals and one silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 where he was also the flag bearer of the United States at the Parade of Nations. This win made him the most successful athlete in the Olympic Games for the fourth time in a row.
Dana Volmer (was born on November 13, 1987) Apart from winning 5 Olympic gold medals, swimmer Dana Vollmer also created history when she became the first female to swim under 56 seconds in the 100m butterfly event. Diagnosed with a heart condition at age 15, she went through surgery and later carried a defibrillator around with her.
Katina Hosszu (was born on May 3, in 1989) is a Hungarian swimmer, three-time Olympic champion, and nine-time long-course world champion. Nicknamed the “Iron Lady,” Hosszú specializes in individual medley events and is the current world record holder in the 100m individual medley, 200m individual medley (long course and short course), 400m individual medley (long course), and the 200m backstroke (short course).She has competed at four Olympic Games (2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016) and is the first swimmer in history to hold world records in all five individual medley events at the same time. She also holds two-thirds of the Hungarian national records and has been considered the most valuable Hungarian athlete for the past five years.
Miss Franklin (was born May 10, 1995) is an American former competition swimmer and five-time Olympic gold medalist. She formerly held the world record in the 200-meter backstroke (long course).[3][4] As a member of the U.S. national swim team, she also held the world records in the 4×100-meter medley relay (short course and long course). In her Olympic debut at the 2012 Summer Olympics at age 17, Franklin won a total of five medals, four of which were gold. She swept the women’s backstroke events, winning gold in both the 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke. Franklin’s successes have earned her Swimming World‘s World Swimmer of the Year and the American Swimmer of the Year award in 2012 as well as the FINA Swimmer of the Year Award in 2011 and 2012. In total, she has won twenty-eight medals in international competition: seventeen gold, six silver, and five bronze, spanning the Olympics, the World Championships, the short course World Championships, and the Pan Pacific Championships. Franklin’s eleven gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships was a record in women’s swimming before Katie Ledecky broke it in 2017.
Kelly Ledecky (born March 17, 1997) Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky has also won 15 world championship gold medals, creating a record. At 15, she was the youngest American Olympic swimming team member at the 2012 London Olympics. The 6-foot-tall athlete is also a Stanford graduate and was the youngest Time 100 member in 2016.
There were a few others that come to mine, but I thought these 20 were the best the past 120 years.