The 5 Most Famous Swimmers of All Time
Here at Online Pool Chemicals, we’ve decided to take a look at 5 of the most famous swimmers of all time. Take a look to see who has made our list.
1. Mark Spitz
It’s no wonder Spitz was known as ‘Mark the Shark’. The retired American swimmer won a remarkable seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
However prior to that, between 1968 and 1972, he collected nine Olympic gold medals and the success didn’t end there. He also picked up silver, bronze, five Pan American golds, 31 US Amateur Athletic Union titles and 8 US National Collegiate Athletic Association titles.
What did this mean for Mark the Shark? He set 33 world records during these years and was dubbed World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971 and 1972. Oh, and made it to the top of our list!
2. Michael Phelps
Phelps has won 16 Olympic medals which is the most that any Olympic athlete has attained in history; now that’s impressive. He earned six gold and two bronze at Athens back in 2004, and 8 gold at Beijing in 2008.
Nicknamed ‘The Baltimore Bullet’, Phelps certainly lives up to this epithet. In fact, he holds the record for the most gold medals won in a single Olympics.
Phelps has won The World Swimmer of the Year Award a staggering six times and American Swimmer of the Year Award eight times. The skilled swimmer has achieved a total of fifty-nine medals in major international competitions, and fifty of those were gold!
3. Ian Thorpe
Ian Thorpe, appropriately named ‘the Thorpedo’, is now retired. However, the Australian swimmer won five Olympic gold medals so he sure did his country proud. Especially as it made him the most accomplished Australian!
At the 2001 World Aquatics Championships, he won six gold medals and is the first person to have done this in only one World Championship.
Thorpe has gained an extraordinary eleven World Championship gold medals and he holds the second-highest number of any swimmer. He was the first person to be awarded with the title of Swimming World Swimmer of the year not just once, but four times!
4. Johnny Weissmuller
Austro-Hungarian born American swimmer Johann Weissmuller was a five-time Olympic gold medallist, and was therefore one of the world’s best swimmers in the 1920s. Weissmuller was victorious for fifty two US National Championships and set sixty seven world records, making him one of history’s most versatile swimmers.
Weissmuller was not only renowned for his swimming talent, but for his acting ability too. He was in twelve motion films, as well as the role of the much loved character Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man.
5. Grant Hackett
The former Australian swimmer is famous for winning the men’s 1500m freestyle race at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, as well as the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. This meant that Hackett became the greatest distance swimmer in history.
Hackett has won 10 World Championship golds and his world record for the 1500m stood for ten years.