Elizabeth Clare Simmonds (born 22 January 1991) is an English competitive swimmer who has represented Great Britain in the Olympics, FINA World Aquatics Championships, and European championships, and England in the Commonwealth Games. She specialises in backstroke events, and is a former European champion in the 200-metre backstroke.
Simmonds represented Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics in both the 100-metre and 200-metre backstroke swimming events. She also competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the 200-metre backstroke swimming event, coming in fourth place.
Simmonds went to secondary school in Lincoln and trained with the Vulcans Swimming Club, later attending Loughborough University. Her early career largely coincided with that of her friend, teammate and former World champion and record holder Gemma Spofforth, with whom she shared the gold and silver medals at both the 100 and 200 metre backstroke at the 2010 European Aquatics Championships.
Krisztina Egerszegi is a Hungarian former world record holding swimmer and one of the greatest Hungarian Olympic champions of the modern era. She is a three-time Olympian and five-time Olympic champion; and one of four individuals to have ever won the same swimming event at three consecutive Summer Olympics. She is the first female swimmer to win five individual Olympic gold medals.
Laure Manaudou is a retired French Olympic, world and European champion swimmer. She has held the world record in freestyle events between 200 and 1500 meter. She is the daughter of a French father and a Dutch mother, and she is the older sister of Florent Manaudou who is also an Olympic gold medalist swimmer.
Katy Sexton, MBE is a former Olympic swimmer from Great Britain. She became the first British swimmer to win a World Championship title, when she won the Women's 200m Back at the 2003 World Championships. She is twice an Olympian and has represented Great Britain in four World Championships, the first in 1998 when she was 16, and in three Commonwealth Games. She was given the MBE for services to swimming in the 2004 New Year Honours list.
Donna-Marie Gurr, CM is a former swimmer from Canada, who won the bronze medal in the 200m backstroke at the 1972 Summer Olympics.
Andrew David Jameson is an English sports commentator and former competitive swimmer. Active as an elite swimmer in the mid-to-late 1980s he represented Great Britain in two consecutive Summer Olympics, the FINA World Championships, LEN European Championships, as well as England in the Commonwealth Games. At his peak between 1986 and 1988 he won the gold medal in 100 metre butterfly at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, the 1987 European Aquatics Championships and the 1987 Summer Universiade, as well as the 100 metre freestyle gold at the same Universiade. Winning the bronze medal at the 1986 World Aquatics Championships, Jameson's career in the pool culminated in winning the bronze medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics, his second and final Olympic Games.
Neil Cochran is a Scottish former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain in the Olympics, European championships and World University Games, and swam for Scotland in the Commonwealth Games, during the 1980s. Cochran competed in medley and freestyle swimming events.
Emily Jane Seebohm, OAM is an Australian swimmer and television personality. She has appeared at four Olympic Games between 2008 and 2021; and won three Olympic gold medals, five world championship gold medals and seven Commonwealth Games gold medals.
Jemma Louise Lowe is a former British international butterfly swimmer and British record holder. She has competed for Wales in the Commonwealth Games, and was a member of Great Britain's 2008 and 2012 Olympic teams.
Gemma Mary Spofforth is an English former competition swimmer who represented Great Britain in the Olympics, FINA world championships and European championships, and England in the Commonwealth Games. Spofforth is the former world record-holder and former world champion in the 100-metre backstroke, and won a total of eight medals in major international championships.
Katinka Hosszú is a Hungarian competitive swimmer specialized in individual medley events. She is a three-time Olympic champion and a nine-time long-course world champion. She is the owner of a Budapest-based swim school and swim club called Iron Swim Budapest, and a co-owner and captain of Team Iron, founding member of the International Swimming League.
Christopher James Walker-Hebborn is an English swimmer who competed for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics, winning a silver medal at the latter.
Siobhan-Marie O'Connor is a former English competitive swimmer who has represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games, the FINA World Aquatics Championships and the LEN European Aquatics Championships, and England at the Commonwealth Games. A specialist in the 200 metres individual medley, she is the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games champion in the event, and has won silver medals in the same event at the 2016 Summer Olympics, the 2015 World Aquatics Championships, 2016 European Aquatics Championships, the 2014 World Short-Course Championships and the 2013 and 2015 European Short Course Championships – on each occasion behind World and Olympic champion Katinka Hosszú. With six Commonwealth Games medals in total from 2014, O'Connor was England's most decorated athlete at those Games.
Georgia Beth Davies is a British competition swimmer who has represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games and European championships, and swam for Wales in the Commonwealth Games. She has won gold in the Commonwealth Games and European Championships. She currently represents Energy Standard in the International Swimming League.
Hilary Caldwell is a Canadian competition swimmer who trains in Victoria, British Columbia. She won a bronze medal in the 200 m backstroke at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Caldwell won a bronze medal in the same event at the 2013 World Aquatics Championships, as well as a bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the 200 m backstroke. She won a gold in the 200 m backstroke at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto.
Evgeny Mikhailovich Rylov is a Russian competitive swimmer and Olympic champion specializing in backstroke events. He won three gold medals at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, and a bronze medal at his senior international debut at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan. He also won a bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and a gold medal at the 2017 World Championships in Budapest, both were in the 200 metre backstroke event. In 2018, at the 2018 World Short Course Championships, he won gold medals in the 200 metre backstroke and 50 metre backstroke. At the 2019 World Championships, he won a gold medal in the 200 metre backstroke, silver medal in the 100 metre backstroke, and silver medal in the 50 metre backstroke. He won the gold medal in the 100 metre backstroke and 200 metre backstroke at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Aishath Sausan is a competitive swimmer from the Maldives.
Kylie Jacqueline Masse is a Canadian competitive swimmer. She is a four-time Olympic medallist, having tied for the bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the 100 m backstroke and then won silver medals at the 2020 Summer Olympics in both the 100 m and 200 m backstroke and a bronze medal in the 4x100 m medley. Masse is a two-time world champion in the 100 m backstroke, breaking the eight year old world record in the process, which she held until July 2018. While winning her title in Budapest at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships she became the first Canadian woman to become a world champion in a swimming event. She subsequently became the first Canadian woman to defend her world title at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships. She is currently the captain for the Toronto Titans of the International Swimming League.
Kathleen Mary Dawson is a Scottish backstroke swimmer. She won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in mixed 4 × 100 metre medley relay in a world record time. She is also the European champion at the 2020 Budapest Championships and holder of the European record in 100 m backstroke (58.08).
Anastasiya Shkurdai is a Belarusian swimmer. She won the bronze medal in the women's 200 metre backstroke event at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships held in Qatar. She won a gold medal at the 2019 European Short Course Swimming Championships held in Great Britain.
Medi Eira Harris is a Welsh international swimmer competing for Great Britain and Wales in backstroke and freestyle. She was part of the gold medal-winning women's 4x100 freestyle relay team at the 2022 European Aquatics Championships. Representing Wales at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, she won a bronze medal in the women's 100 metre backstroke.
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