Mark Time

When I was writing up my thought about Freedom's Fury, I nearly cited this article on a click-through from swiminfo.com. The sentence that grabbed my attention was:

'... Mark Spitz, the 16-year old from Santa Clara who reaped in five gold medals, as he set two world marks in his specialty (or what really is his specialty?) going 53.6 for the 100m. butterfly ...'

... which struck me as pretty spectacular for 1967, 40 years ago! That's a fairly decent time outside a major Championship even now. He was, after all, a fine swimmer and, up till March of this year, undoubtedly the best ever.

Then I started to ponder, 53.6, 53.6? His winning time in the 1972 Olympics was 54- something, wasn't it? Well, Nick Thierry, swimnews and the FINA Long Course Annual to the rescue; not 53.6 but 56.3! Spitz' first 100m Butterfly world record (he'd set the 200 five days earlier), set at the Pan-Pacific Championships in Winnepeg 31 July 1967, equalled by Doug Russell (USA) in Tokyo, 29 August 1967 and broken by Spitz in Berlin, 7 October 1967 with 55.7.

Just goes to show, don't believe everything you read in print ... unless it's from swimnews!

By the way, have a look at the diferent starting styles from 1972! Spitz, of course, is in lane 4. Jeepers there were some good swimmers around in those days :)