U.S. Masters Swimming is proud to count a number of Olympians among its current and former members.
Thanks to the hard work of Gail Roper, a list of these exceptional athletes is now available on the USMS web site.
From usms.org, you can view the list by selecting the blue "Home" tab, then "History & Archives," then "Olympians in USMS" from the left "In This Section" column. The direct link is http://www.usms.org/hist/oly/
The list contains the names of any Olympians who have been verified as ever being members of USMS (or of our predecessor AAU organization). The list includes athletes who competed for countries other than the U.S. (such as France, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Cuba), and in sports other than swimming (such as water polo, kayak, shot put, and pentathlon).
Gail Roper is an Olympian herself. She competed in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. She has put a tremendous amount of time into this project. Various members of the USMS History & Archives committee have assisted over the years with research and detective work.
Enjoy the list! Corrections or additions may be sent to: Olympians (at) usms (dot) org
While you're on the History & Archives page, take a look around. The "Stories About Swimmers" section contains hundreds of short biographies of USMS members. The committee is always looking for more stories and would welcome your contributions. Instructions for submitting a story can be found on the page.
Shot Putter Parry O'Brien. Olympic Gold in shot put 1952 and 1956, silver in 1960 and 4th place in 1964.
Parry swam Masters for many years in Southern California. He died while swimming the 500 at the SCY regionals in Santa Clarita in 2007.
Are there other non-swimming Olympians on the list besides Armstrong?
Yes. Click on any name on the list and you'll see the sports and events they competed in, and the countries they represented.
Our Olympian members competed in these Olympic sports:
Cycling
Diving
Kayak
Modern Pentathlon
Open water swimming
Shot put
Swimming
Triathlon
Volleyball
And our Olympian members represented the following countries:
Austria
Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Colombia
Cuba
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
East Germany
Ecuador
Egypt
France
Germany
Great Britain
Greece
Guam
Hungary
Israel
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Mexico
Moldova
Netherlands
New Zealand
Philippines
Poland
Puerto Rico
Romania
Slovakia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Turkey
Unified Team (old USSR countries, I think)
USA
Venezuela
West Germany
Yugoslavia
Our Olympian members competed in these Olympic sports:
Cycling
Diving
Kayak
Modern Pentathlon
Open water swimming
Shot put
Swimming
I know who this is: Sheila Taormina!
She also competed in triathlon, by the way. Not too shabby making it to the Olympics in three different sports!
Oops, you are correct - I accidentally left Triathlon off the list.
See Sheila's events here: Sheila Taormina
There are a couple of other Olympian triathletes on the list as well - Jarrod Shoemaker and Gwen Jorgensen.
USA Today has a great article onliune today about Olympian now Masters swimmer/coach Bey Melamed.
www.usatoday.com/.../1
"Can you believe it's been 40 years since Munich?" he is asked.
"Do I have a choice? I can't believe I can't swim 200 butterfly anymore!" he says. "I can't believe this, I can't believe that, but I have to live."