Helene Madison biography
Helene Madison, (born June 19, 1913, Madison, Wis., U.S.—died Nov. 27, 1970, Seattle, Wash.), American swimmer, the excellent performer in ladies’s freestyle competitors between 1930 and 1932. She gained three Olympic gold medals and at her peak held each American freestyle file.
Madison grew up in Seattle and commenced profitable regional highschool swimming championships on the age of 15. In 1930, in her first 12 months of senior competitors, she gained each Amateur Athletic Union nationwide freestyle championship; she repeated that success in 1931, when she was chosen because the 12 months’s best feminine athlete by the Associated Press. During these two years she set world data at each distance: the out of doors 100-metre, 440- and 880-yard, and one-mile races and the indoor 100- and 220-yard races. Altogether in her temporary profession, she set 20 world data.
The 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles featured three of the 19-year-old Madison’s best efforts. A late burst of pace helped her to a win within the 100-metre freestyle race. In the 400-metre freestyle Madison and teammate Lenore Kight shortly pulled forward of the others, then dueled for the lead, with Madison profitable in 5 min 28.5 sec, a tenth of a second forward of Kight, to interrupt her personal world file. Her third gold medal got here as a member of the American 4 × 100-metre relay crew, which set one other world file in that Olympics. In 1966 she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, and in 1992 she was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.