Gordon Downie (swimmer)

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Gordon Downie
20131206 Gordon Downie.JPG
Personal information
Full nameGordon Hunter Downie
National team Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain
Flag of Scotland.svg Scotland
Born (1955-03-03) 3 March 1955 (age 69)
Wisconsin, United States
Height1.96 m (6 ft 5 in)
Weight91 kg (201 lb)
Sport
Sport Swimming
Strokes Freestyle
Club Warrender Baths Club
College team University of Michigan
Medal record
Men's swimming
Representing Great Britain
Olympic Games
Bronze medal icon (B initial).svg 1976 Montreal 4x200 m freestyle
World Swimming Championships
Silver medal icon (S initial).svg 1975 Cali 4x200 m freestyle
Bronze medal icon (B initial).svg 1975 Cali 4x100 m medley

Gordon Hunter Downie (born 3 March 1955) is a British former competitive swimmer who swam in the 1976 Summer Olympics and won a bronze medal as a member of the British 4x200-metre freestyle relay team. [1]

Contents

Biography

Swimming career

Although Downie was born in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, his father was Scottish [2] and he swam for Great Britain, Scotland, and the Warrender Baths Club in Edinburgh. [3] [4] While attending the University of Michigan on an athletics scholarship, he swam for the Michigan Wolverines swimming and diving team in collegiate competition. [5] [6]

Downie represented Great Britain at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships in Belgrade, Yugoslavia where he broke the Scottish record for the 200-metre freestyle. [3] The next year he represented Scotland at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1975 he swam for Scotland at the 8-nations tournament in Prague, Czechoslovakia. [3] and won a silver medal at the 1975 World Championships in Cali, Colombia as part of the British 4x200-metre freestyle relay with Alan McClatchey, Gary Jameson, and Brian Brinkley. At the same championships he won a bronze medal as part of the British 4x100-metre medley relay with David Wilkie, James Carter and Brian Brinkley. [7] Apart from winning his bronze medal, he was sixth in the 200-metre freestyle at the 1976 Montreal Olympics when he set a British record that stood for six years. [8] He swam in the 1977 European Aquatics Championships in Jönköping, Sweden, and represented Scotland in the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. [2] [3] [6] Downie held both the Scottish 200-metre and 400-metre freestyle records for 10 years from 1972 to 1982. [8]

He won the 1975 ASA National Championship 100 metres freestyle title, the 1979 200 metres freestyle and the 400 metres freestyle in 1977. [9] [10]

Downie was inducted into the Scottish Swimming Hall of Fame in 2014. [8]

Personal life

Downie graduated with a medical degree from Northwestern University in 1986. [11] In 2004 Downie was a doctor (pulmonologist) at The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University [2] and in 2014 he was practicing in Mount Pleasant, Texas at the Titus Regional Medical Center. [11] He specialises in lung cancer clinical and research work. [8]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Gordon Downie". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 30 January 2012. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Hutson, Jeannine (27 August 2004) Physician, Bronze Medallist Reflects on Past Olympics Pieces of Eight, University of East Carolina faculty and Staff Newspaper, Page 8. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Gilmour, Jamie (1990). One Hundred years of Warrender baths Club. Macdonald Lindsay Pindar. ISBN   0951678701.
  4. ↑ Staff (15 January 2013) Permanent wall exhibition to chart 125 year history of Warrender Swimming Club The Scotsman. Retrieved 24 january 2013.
  5. ↑ Michigan the Olympics 1976 – Montreal
  6. 1 2 Lange, Ed (23 January 1975) Downie Swims for Blue... and Britain The Michigan Daily. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  7. ↑ Medallists at the FINA World Swimming Championships Archived 6 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine HistoFINA, Volume IV, Tome IV, Before Rome 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Gordon Downie Scottish Swimming. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  9. ↑ "Fox, Norman. "Swimming." Times, 26 May 1975, p. 9". Times Digital Archive.
  10. ↑ ""Swimming." Times, 23 July 1977, p. 5". Times Digital Archive.
  11. 1 2 (2014) Dr. Gordon H Downie MD, Pulmonologist U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
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