Don Schollander biography

 Don Schollander biography

Don Schollander, byname of Donald Arthur Schollander, (born April 30, 1946, Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.), American athlete who was the primary swimmer to win 4 gold medals in a single Olympic Games.

A product of the acclaimed Santa Clara (California) Swim Club, Schollander was famous for his pace, perfection of stroke, and easy crawl. He broke a number of U.S. and world freestyle data within the early Nineteen Sixties and in 1963 grew to become the primary to swim 200 metres in lower than 2 minutes, bettering the time for this distance in 9 record-breaking swims between July 1963 and August 1968. In 1964, previous to the Tokyo Olympics, he lowered the world 200-metre freestyle normal to 1 min 57.6 sec, and he additionally broke the world 400-metre freestyle file earlier than decreasing it as soon as extra on the Olympics.

At the Tokyo Games, Schollander set a world file (4 min 12.2 sec) within the 400-metre freestyle and an Olympic file (53.4 sec) within the 100-metre freestyle occasion and was a member of the U.S. groups that established world data whereas profitable the 4 × 100-metre and 4 × 200-metre relay races. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, he received a silver medal within the 200-metre freestyle, after setting a world file of 1 min 54.3 sec within the pre-Olympic U.S. workforce trials. He additionally was a gold medal winner in Mexico City with the 4 × 200-metre relay workforce. In 1983 Schollander was among the many first group of athletes to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.