Pete Desjardins biography

 Pete Desjardins biography

Pete Desjardins, byname of Ulise Joseph Desjardins, (born April 12, 1907, St. Pierre, Man., Can.—died May 6, 1985, Miami, Fla., U.S.), Canadian-born American diver who gained a silver medal within the springboard on the 1924 Olympics in Paris and gold medals within the springboard and platform occasions on the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, an achievement that was not matched by a male diver till Greg Louganis gained both occasions on the 1984 Games.

Desjardins was nicknamed “the Little Bronze Statue” (or “the Little Bronze Statue from the Land of Real Estate, Grapefruit, and Alligators”) for his peak and year-round suntan; his household moved to Florida from Canada in 1917. From 1925 to 1927 he held the U.S. nationwide outside springboard and platform titles, and he gained the indoor springboard title in 1927 and 1928. The gold medal within the 1928 Olympic platform occasion was intitially awarded to Farid Simaika of Egypt earlier than a tabulation error within the scoring was found, and Desjardins was declared the winner, interrupting the Egyptian nationwide anthem on the medal ceremony.

Desjardins had enrolled at Stanford University in 1927, however in 1929 he was suspended—together with Johnny Weissmuller, Helen Meany, and Martha Norelius—by the Amateur Athletic Union for accepting an allegedly extreme quantity of expense cash for an exhibition. Desjardins’s protest was not profitable, and he was thus denied the chance for a collegiate championship and was not eligible to compete within the 1932 Olympics. Turning skilled in 1932, he participated in diving and swimming exhibitions all over the world, usually performing comedy routines with Weissmuller. In 1966 he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.