Jon Sieben
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| Olympic medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Men’s Swimming | |||
| Gold | 1984 Los Angeles | 200m Butterfly | |
| Bronze | 1984 Los Angeles | 4x100 m Medley Relay | |
Jonathan ("Jon") Sieben (born August 24, 1966) is an Australian butterfly swimmer of the 1980s, who won gold in the 200m butterfly at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Hailing from Brisbane, Queensland, Sieben was coached by Laurie Lawrence, and made his debut at the young age of 15 at the Brisbane 1982 Commonwealth Games, where he captured a bronze in the 200m butterfly, as well as gold in the medley relay. Sieben and Lawrence continued their preparation for Los Angeles, but were given little chance. Sieben was known to his friends as The Shrimp, as he stood just 173cm, in contrast to the dominant swimmer of the time, West Germany's Michael Gross, the world record holder, known as The albatross with his 200cm frame and 225cm wingspan. He also faced the 100m butterfly world record holder, the United States' Pablo Morales. Sieben swum in the wake of Gross and Morales in the first 150m, before storming home in the last 50m to claim the gold medal in a world record time of 1min 57.04s, more than four seconds faster than he had ever swum before. He also collected a bronze medal after swimming in the preliminaries of the medley relay. He was named the Young Australian of the Year.
By the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Sieben's ability had waned, and the selectors did not choose him for the 200m butterfly. He finished 6th in the 100m butterfly. He continued onto the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, but he failed to reach any finals.
| Olympic champions in men's 200 m butterfly |
|---|
| 1956: William Yorzyk | 1960: Michael Troy | 1964: Kevin Berry | 1968: Carl Robie | 1972: Mark Spitz | 1976: Mike Bruner | 1980: Sergey Fesenko | 1984: Jon Sieben | 1988: Michael Gross | 1992: Melvin Stewart | 1996: Denis Pankratov | 2000: Tom Malchow | 2004: Michael Phelps |
[edit] References
- Andrews, Malcolm (2000). Australia at the Olympic Games.
- Howell, Max (1986). Aussie Gold.
