1972 Olympics - Mark Spitz

It was fun to watch the You Tube video at the Swimming World link. Thanks for posting! I noticed that in the medely relay, there was a Hungarian swimmer named László Cseh. Is he any relation to the 2008 & 2012 Olympian?

Yes. That is his father.

Whats interesting is to see the suits, no goggles, and basically no underwater swimming on either the starts or the turns. And no caps. Those were the real stuffs. I think the underwater kick should be a separate race itself and now allowed in full-stroke races.

I'm sorry I missed it! I wonder if it will be on again??

I missed most of it too. It will be rebroadcast on 9/11 in the morning. 4-7 am in CA, I think. Hard to believe 40 years has passed. I am having a little champagne to celebrate!

Thanks Frank. Brings back memories - no caps, goggles. Did you notice Heidenreich before the 100 free, jumping into the diving well and doing a mini sprint, between the time he was announced and the start?

Thanks Frank. Brings back memories - no caps, goggles. Did you notice Heidenreich before the 100 free, jumping into the diving well and doing a mini sprint, between the time he was announced and the start? Yes I did notice Jerry Heidenreich swimming in the diving welll before the 100 Free? Up to that point, Jerry was hot in the 100 Free. He split 50.78 going 3rd in the 400 Free Relay and really put the USA ahead by a very comfortable margin. Spitz swam anchor and swam a 50.91 and going into this last individual event Jerry had gone faster than Spitz in both the heats and semi finals. This was going to be his toughest race and situation was similar to when Phelps had to swim Cavic in the 100 Fly. Spitz took off and was always in the lead unlike other times where he came back on the field. They showed 16 events and they were all the gold medal swims by the USA. Seven of those were Spitz's races and they showed the two other gold medal events of John Hencken's 200 *** and Mike Burton's 1500 Free. In the 200 ***, the thing that stuck out was the swimmers were not permitted to put their heads underwater and it looked so different than the way we swim today. USMS World Record holder from the Omaha Nationals (Rick Colella) was in 2nd place at the 150 mark and just missed the medal stand in 4th. In the 1500 Free, the big news was that Rick DeMont was not permitted to swim and during the event the commentators talked about this and had an interview with Ken Treadway about the protest by the USA. They showed practically the whole race except from 800 to 1000 and Burton was behind at the 1100 mark and passed Graham Windeatt in the next 400 meters and won by 6 seconds. On the Women's side they showed the complete events of Melisa Belote's sweep of the 100 Back and 200 Back and it took 40 years for another USA women to sweep those events this year. What's interesting is there have been 4 men that have done that since 1972. They showed all of Sandy Neilson Bell's 3 gold medal performances in the 100 Free and the 2 relays. Belote also won 3 gold medals with the 400 Medley Relay and Cathy Carr West won the 100 *** and was in the 400 Medley for 2 golds. They showed the Women's 200 Fly sweep of Karen Moe Humphreys, Lynn Colella, and Ellie Daniel and with the Men's sweep of the 200 Fly that is only the second time in USA Olympic history that has been accomplished and the only other time was in 1968 in both the Women's and Men's 200 IM. The last individual event for the women they showed was Keena Rothhammer winning the 800 Free and beating the favored Shane Gould. It was pointed out that USA Women won two out of 4 races against Gould and at the beginning of the 1972 Olympics, Shane was favored to win 5 gold medals (100 Free, 200 Free, 400 Free, 800 Free, and 200 IM) but won 3 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze. One of the races they did not show was the Men's 400 IM in which Gunnar Larson and Tim McKee tied to the one hundredth of a second and had to dismantle the timing system and awarded the gold medal to Larson because his time was 2 thousands of a second faster. Since then they found this to be inaccurate and have never done this again, and have always awarded two gold medal. Since then 2 races have ended like this and those are the 1984 Women's 100 Free and the 2000 Men's 50 Free. It would have been nice to see some of Shane Gould and Roland Matthes winning races because they were the other dominate swimmers that were not from the USA but other than that it was great to go back in time 40 years ago and see these swimmers and see how swimming has progressed up to today.

And no caps. Those were the real stuffs. I think the underwater kick should be a separate race itself and now allowed in full-stroke races. We did not use goggles on my HS team....Tom

Mark Spitz interview from this past July 2012: Mark Spitz on Phelps, Lochte and why the Spirit of the Games is more important than Medals - YouTube

We did not use goggles on my HS team....Tom Did you keep your eyes open or closed underwater?