Pieter Cornelis Martijn van den Hoogenband is a Dutch retired swimmer. He is a triple Olympic champion and former world record holder.
Kristin Otto is a former German swimmer, becoming Olympic, World and European champion, multiple times. She is most famous for being the first woman to win six gold medals at a single Olympic Games, doing so at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. In long course, she held the world records in the 100 meter and 200 meter freestyle events. Otto was also the first woman to swim the short course 100 meter backstroke in under a minute, doing so at an international short course meet at Indiana University in 1983.
Michael Groß, usually spelled Michael Gross in English, is a former competitive swimmer from Germany. He is 201 centimetres tall, and received the nickname "The Albatross" for his especially long arms that gave him a total span of 2.13 meters. Gross, competing for West Germany, won three Olympic gold medals, two in 1984 and one in 1988 in the freestyle and butterfly events, in addition to two World Championship titles in 1982, two in 1986 and one in 1991.
Franziska van Almsick is a retired German swimmer, former world record holder. She was multiple World and European champion, in both Long and Short Course Championships.
Michael Steward Heath is an American former competition swimmer who specialized in freestyle events. He is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and a former world record-holder in two relay swimming events. A native of Texas, he won two national collegiate championship competing for the University of Florida. During his elite swimming career, Heath won ten medals in major international championships, including seven golds, two silvers and a bronze, spanning the Olympic Games, FINA World Championships, and Pan Pacific Championships.
Vladimir Valeryevich Salnikov is a Russian former freestyle swimmer who set 12 world records in the 400, 800 and 1,500 metre events. Nicknamed the "Tsar of the Pool", "Monster of the Waves" and "Leningrad Express", he was the first person to swim under fifteen minutes in the 1500 m freestyle and also the first person to swim under eight minutes in the 800 m freestyle. He was named the Male World Swimmer of the Year in 1979 and 1982 by Swimming World.
Thomas Lurz is a German swimmer who specializes in long-distance freestyle swimming, especially open water swimming. Lurz lives in Gerbrunn and swims for the SV Würzburg 05 sports club.
Allan Frederick Wood was an Australian freestyle swimmer, who won bronze medals in the 400-metre and 1500-metre freestyle events at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He spent his entire career in the shadow of fellow Australian distance freestyle swimmers Murray Rose and Bob Windle who won Olympic gold medals.
Jörg Hoffmann is a retired freestyle swimmer from Germany, former World record holder, becoming the first man to swim 1500m Freestyle under 15 minutes. He was also multiple World and European champion, in both Long and Short Course Championships.
Britta Steffen is a German former competitive swimmer who specialized in freestyle sprint events, winning 2 gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Gary Steven Ilman was an American competition swimmer, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and former world record-holder in two relay events. He would later coach swimming, serving as a Head Coach at Colorado State, and work in the electronics industry.
Francesca Jean Halsall is a retired English competitive swimmer who has represented Great Britain at the Olympics, FINA world championships, and European championships, and England at the Commonwealth Games. She competed primarily in freestyle and butterfly events.
Nimrod Shapira is an Israeli two-time Olympic swimmer, having represented Israel at the 2008 Olympics in the 100 meter and 200 meter freestyle, and in the 200 m freestyle for Israel at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Alain Mosconi is a French former swimmer, Olympic medalist and world record holder. He competed at the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics in six freestyle, butterfly and medley relay events. In 1968 he won a bronze medal in the 400 m freestyle and finished in fifth place in the 200 m individual freestyle and 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. In 1972, his best achievement was seventh place in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay.
Semyon Viktorovich Belits-Geiman is a former Soviet freestyle swimmer. He set a world record in the 800 m freestyle, and won two Olympic medals.
Abraham Kurland was a Danish Olympic silver medalist wrestler. Kurland won 12 Denmark championships from 1932-49, won a silver medal in lightweight Greco Roman wrestling at the 1932 Olympics and a gold medal in lightweight at the 1932 Maccabiah Games in Mandatory Palestine, won a gold medal at the 1934 European Wrestling Championships in Greco-Roman and a bronze medal in freestyle, and won a silver medal at the 1935 European Wrestling Championships.
Frank Pfütze was a German freestyle swimmer who competed at the 1976 and 1980 Summer Olympics in five events. He won a silver medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay in 1980 and finished fifth in the same event in 1976. In individual events he was eliminated in the preliminaries
Florent Manaudou is a French competitive swimmer, an Olympic champion of the 50-meter freestyle at the 2012 London Olympics, and the younger brother of Laure Manaudou, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist in swimming. He competes for the Energy Standard Swim Club in the International Swimming League.
Diana Elizabeth Wilkinson is a retired British freestyle swimmer. She competed in the British Empire and Commonwealth Games from 1958 to 1966, the 1958 and 1962 European Aquatics Championships, and the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics.
Dorothea Brandt is a German swimmer, who specialized in sprint freestyle and breaststroke events. She is a multiple-time German champion, a fourteen-time medalist at the European Short Course Swimming Championships, and a semi-finalist in the 50 m freestyle at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Brandt currently holds the short-course German record time of 23.74 seconds in the same discipline.
