Shirley Babashoff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Olympic medal record | |||
---|---|---|---|
Women’s Swimming | |||
Silver | Munich 1972 | 100m Freestyle | |
Silver | Munich 1972 | 200m Freestyle | |
Gold | Munich 1972 | 4x100m Freestyle Relay | |
Silver | Montreal 1976 | 200m Freestyle | |
Silver | Montreal 1976 | 400m Freestyle | |
Silver | Montreal 1976 | 800m Freestyle | |
Gold | Montreal 1976 | 4x100m Freestyle Relay | |
Silver | Montreal 1976 | 4x100m Medley Relay |
Shirley F. Babashoff (born January 31, 1957 in Whittier, California) is a former swimmer from the United States, who set six world records and earned a total of eight Olympic medals in her career. She also won a gold medal in the 400 meter freestyle relay in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, and won the 1975 World Championship in both the 200 and 400 meter freestyle.
At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, she took a silver medal in four events as the competition was dominated by the East German swimmers. The East Germans were later proven to have used performance enhancing drugs to win the gold medals. Although Babashoff never won an individual gold medal in Olympic competition, she is still regarded as one of the top swimmers in history. Her time in winning the silver medal in the 400 meter freestyle at the 1976 Olympics would have defeated Don Schollander for the gold medal twelve years earlier at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.
In 1982 she was inducted in the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Babashoff was occasionally referred to as "Surly Shirley" because of her public accusations of cheating by the East German swimmers. Her brother Jack Babashoff was also an Olympic swimmer. Long after her Olympic career ended, she became a single mother and took a job with the United States Post Office delivering mail in Orange County, California.
[edit] External links
Categories: 1957 births | Living people | Olympic swimmers of the United States | Swimmers at the 1972 Summer Olympics | Swimmers at the 1976 Summer Olympics | People from the Greater Los Angeles Area | Olympic gold medalists for the United States | Olympic silver medalists for the United States | American freestyle swimmers | United States swimming biography stubs