Fred Schmidt

Fred Schmidt
Schmidt at the 1964 Olympics
Personal information
Full name Frederick Weber Schmidt
Nickname(s) "Fred"
National team United States
Born (1943-10-23) October 23, 1943
Evanston, Illinois, U.S.[1]
Height 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Weight 185 lb (84 kg)
Sport
Sport Swimming
Strokes Butterfly
College team Indiana University

Frederick Weber Schmidt (born October 23, 1943) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder.

Schmidt began swimming competitively at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, and was part of one of the greatest high school swim teams, in 1961. The team won the Illinois high school championship, and various team members held every high school national record at the time. The New Trier High School team placed third in the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championships that year behind the Yale and Indiana University teams. He then joined coach Doc Counsilman's Indiana Hoosiers swimming and diving team at Indiana University.

At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, he received a gold medal by swimming the butterfly leg for the winning U.S. team in the 4×100-meter medley relay, setting a new world record of 3:58.4 with teammates Thompson Mann (backstroke), Bill Craig (breaststroke), and Steve Clark (freestyle).[2] He also received a bronze medal for his third-place finish in the 200-meter butterfly, clocking a time of 2:09.3.

Schmidt held the world record in 100-meter butterfly (58.6 seconds) from August 20, 1961 to April 24, 1962.

Schmidt later entered the U.S. Navy, became a SEAL, and participated in the recovery of several capsules in NASA's manned space flight program. In 1971, when Apollo 15 returned from the moon, Schmidt welcomed mission commander David Scott, also a former competitive swimmer, back to earth.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill. "Fred Schmidt". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 2012-11-13.
  2. ↑ "1964 Summer Olympics – Tokyo, Japan – Swimming" Archived 2007-09-04 at the Wayback Machine. – databaseOlympics.com (Retrieved on April 29, 2008)
  3. ↑ Collections Retrieved From The Vault. constantcontact.com
Records
Preceded by
Lance Larson		 Men's 100-meter butterfly
world record-holder (long course)
August 20, 1961 – April 24, 1962		 Succeeded by
Luis Nicolao
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