Sports Legends: Mark Spitz

American swimmer who won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, breaking a world record in each of his wins, being the first athlete in the history of the Olympic Games to achieve this feat in a single edition.

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Before turning two years old, he was born in Modesto (California, United States) on February 10, 1.950, his family moved to Hawaii, and like the great Hawaiian swimmer of the past, Duke Kahanemoku, he learned to swim at the beach from Waikiki. At age eight, back in California, he began swimming in the ranks of the YMCA club. A year later he already had his own coach, Sherm Chavoor. He practiced swimming seven days a week and 52 weeks a year. Before his 11th birthday, Spitz already held 17 national records in his category. Shortly after, his father enrolled him in the Santa Clara Swimming Club, where he had a coach, George Haines, even tougher than Chavoor.

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In 1.964, Don Schollander, the best swimmer of the time in the world after the Tokyo Games, already sees him as a dangerous rival and will not want to compete with him, foreseeing what will happen a couple of years later. Thus, in 1.966 in the Second Pre-Olympic Week of Mexico he caused a sensation, prevailing in several tests.

A year later, in 1.967, he began his international career. He breaks his first world "record" in 400 m. free (June 25) with 4.10.16. That same year he will achieve six new best records in the world, equaling two others and will obtain five gold medals at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg. For all this, and at only 17 years old, he will be named the best world athlete of the year.

A year later, at the Olympic Games in Mexico, Spitz won two golds (4 × 100 and 4 × 200 free relays), a silver (100 butterfly meters) and a bronze (100 meters free), triumphs that he considered somewhat disappointing, since he hoped to win five or six gold medals. After finishing the Olympics he said: "In Munich I will win seven gold medals."

After frustration you don't collapse. In 1.971, the pre-Olympic year, he broke six new world "records", being elected best swimmer of the Year. This time he won't fail.

In Munich ´72 he started with his record breaking machine. Despite his nerves, on the first day he won the 200 m butterfly with a new world record (2'00 ”70). On the same date he achieved another world record in the 4 x 100 freestyle (3'28 ”8). The next day, he won the 200-meter freestyle in 1'52 ”78 (third world record).

Not happy with what he had done, on the fourth day he swept the 100-meter butterfly (54 ”27). An hour later, he won his fifth gold and broke his fifth world record (7'35 ”78) in the 4 x 200 freestyle relay. And on the fifth day he faced the possibility of surpassing Don Schollander, who had achieved five gold medals in Tokyo '64. And he did it by winning the 100 freestyle in 51 ”22, also with a new world record.

To finish off his feat, Spitz participated in the 4 x 100-meter medley relay, swam the butterfly relay, and made up for the incredible lead the East German team had gained in the first relay, where he had broken the 100-meter backstroke world record. . The American team won with a time of 3'48”66, beating the Germans by 4 seconds.

Spitz will leave the Olympic Village when the Palestinian terrorists spread the alarm throughout the world with their attack against the Israelis, due to their Jewish origin.

In this same year of 1.972, he retired, after having achieved nine gold medals in the Olympic Games and 32 world "records" throughout his six years as a professional, because he thought he could no longer do more in the pools and He wanted to make money, putting into practice his maxim that "the smart thing for a champion is to take advantage of all kinds of opportunities."

Although he completed his career as a dentist, he never practiced it. He will begin his career in the artistic field, debuting on the Bob Hope "show" on television, in addition to trying his luck as an actor and as a publicist, although he will fail in both attempts. He has more success, at least financially, as a model, since in the first year alone he earned five million dollars. He will also make his first steps as a singer.

In 1.989, at the age of 39, motivated by the proximity of his best marks in the 100 butterfly to those of the swimmers of the moment, he tried to return to competition, and even participated in some pre-Olympic events, with the desire to participate in Barcelona. 92. Although he would have liked to be in those Games "more than all his medals," he did not achieve it and had to settle for being a television commentator.