 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Sharon Lynn Wichman | |||||||||||||||||
| National team | United States | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | May 13, 1952 Detroit, Michigan | |||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) | |||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 132 lb (60 kg) | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Breaststroke | |||||||||||||||||
| Club | Club Olympia Fort Wayne, In. | |||||||||||||||||
| Coach | Steven Hunyadfi | |||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||||||
Sharon Lynn Wichman (born May 13, 1952), also known by her married name Sharon Jones, is an American former competition swimmer and 1968 Olympic champion in the breaststroke.
Sharon's family left Detroit when she was young, and she swam for a while in Toledo, Ohio. [1] One of her earliest age group coaches was Coach Glen Hummer who coached at the YMCA in Huntington, near Fort Wayne. Besides Sharon, Hummer had also taught swimming technique to Hall of Fame Coach George Haines. [2]
At eleven, Sharon started swimming for Fort Wayne's Club Olympia in Fort Wayne, Indiana, coached by Don Carter, and then by her Olympic trainer, and world-renowned Coach Steven Hunyadfi. By 16, prepping for the Olympics, Sharon would practice up to four hours a day, and swim up to 13,000 yards or seven miles a day. [1] Her father, a cost-analyst and tool engineer, was transferred to Mexico in 1966, where the family lived just North of Mexico City and Sharon continued her training, but she could no longer train with her backstroke specialist Hunyadfi and believed she needed better coaching to make the Olympics. [1] She received minimal training in Mexico City, and returning to the United States, she trained with Hunyadfi for the 1967 U.S. Summer National Championship. [3]
Wichman was born in Detroit, Michigan, [4] but after a move attended Chester Lane Junior High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana where, already a swimmer, she began dreaming of competing in the Olympics. A straight "A" student by 16, she graduated in 1970 from Fort Wayne's R. Nelson Snider High School. [1] Though not coached together, five years later in 1975, Snider High would graduate 1976 Montreal Olympic gold medalist Matt Vogel. [5] [3]
Sharon bested a few breaststroke records prepping for the 68 Olympics. In the Spring of '68, she won the 200-yard breaststroke and was second in the 100 at the Pittsburgh Indoor National meet, though she lacked a world record. [1] Under the watchful eye of her coach Steven Hudyadfi, a former Hungarian National and Italian Olympic swim team coach, she broke the National Junior Olympics record at Indianapolis's AAU Indiana Junior Olympics in the 100-meter breaststroke by a substantial 3.5 seconds with a time of 1:19.3. Sharon also broke the 200-meter breastroke record with a time of 2:47.6 in the final round. [6]
While a Junior at Snider High School, in her most noteworthy performance she represented the United States as a 16-year-old at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, having qualified to compete in both breaststroke events. [4]
Sharon benefitted from the training she received at the Olympic training camp in Colorado Springs in preparation for the altitude in Mexico City, and believed she was inspired by Olympic Coach Frank Elm. [3]
Wichman received a gold medal for winning the women's 200-meter breaststroke (2:44.4) on October 23, 1968, beating Đurđica Bjedov of Yugoslavia by two seconds, and breaking the old Olympic record by around the same margin. With her victory, Sharon became the first U.S. breaststroke champion in Olympic history. [7] [8] [9]
She also received a bronze medal for her third place in the women's 100-meter breaststroke (1:16.1), finishing less than two seconds behind gold medalist Bjedov (1:15.8) and only two-tenths of a second behind Soviet swimmer Galina Prozumenshchikova (1:15.9). [10]
Continuing to swim, in July of 1969, she competed in the Santa Clara International Invitational, one of the top international meets of the year, at the Santa Clara Swim Center in Santa Clara, California. [11] Continuing successful competition in 1969, she won the 100-meter breaststroke title in the national short course championship and was able to place in the top three in most subsequent national competitions. She later took international titles at Bremen, Germany in both the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke. [3]
After college graduation, she coached swimming for the Tippecanoe County Swim team in Lafayette, Indiana while her husband attended Perdue. Sharon attended and swam for Lake Forest College in Illinois, helping the team to finish sixth in the NCAA Swim Championships, though she felt, despite being an Olympic medalist, she was not taken as a serious athlete by the Men's team swimmers. In 1976, she coached [12]
She graduated college, married David Jones in 1973, and lived in nearby Churubusco, Indiana. The couple had two sons. [13] As a result of a strong Baptist faith, after years of disciplined spending and cautious informed investments, Sharon and her husband David Jones started giving generous donations to a number of organizations, particularly her favorite, a Prison Fellowship. She also has worked driving a school bus to serve her community and give her time with children. [14]
She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1991. [15]
Donald Lee Gambril is an American former Hall of Fame swimming coach who is best known for coaching the University of Alabama from 1973 to 1990. His Alabama teams had top ten NCAA finishes eleven times, 3 Southeastern Conference titles, and were the runner-up at the NCAA Championship in 1977. Earlier, his Long Beach State teams had top ten NCAA finishes four times from 1968-71. He had the rare distinction of serving as a U.S. Olympic coach in five Olympics from 1968 to 1984.
Đurđa "Đurđica" Bjedov is a retired Croatian swimmer and the only Yugoslav Olympic champion in swimming.
Sharon Marie Stouder, also known by her married name Sharon Stouder Clark, was an American competition swimmer, three-time Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in four events.
Jeremy Porter Linn is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic medalist, world record-holder and current swim coach. Linn set an American record in the 100-meter breaststroke while winning the silver medal in that event at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, in a time of 1:00.77. With a burst of speed in the final stretch, he finished just .12 seconds behind the gold medal winner from Belgium who had previously set the World Record.
R. Nelson Snider High School is a secondary school in the Fort Wayne Community Schools system, serving the north central and northeast neighborhoods of Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States.
Lindsay Dianne Benko, known by her married name Lindsay Mintenko since 2005, is an American former competition swimmer, two-time Olympian, former world record-holder, and a managing director of USA swimming. She represented the United States women as a Team Captain at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics, taking a gold medal in freestyle relays both years. She held the short-course world record in the 400-meter freestyle at 3:59.53, for nearly three years from January 2003 to December 2005.
Claudia Anne Kolb, also known by her married name Claudia Thomas, is an American former competition swimmer, swim coach, two-time Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in four events.
Carl Joseph Robie III was an American competitive swimmer, who swam for the University of Michigan and was first a silver medalist in the 1968 Olympics, and then a gold medalist in the 1972 Olympics. He was a three-time world record-holder in the 200-meter butterfly, continuing to lower his times from 1961-63. After graduating Dickinson Law School around 1970, he practiced civil law in Sarasota, Florida.
Catherine Mai-Lan Fox, born December 15, 1977 in Detroit, Michigan, is an American former swimmer who competed for Stanford University, and won two gold medals swimming freestyle at the 1996 Summer Olympics, one in the 4x100 freestyle relay and one in the 4x100 medley relay.
Catharine Ball Condon, née Catharine Northcutt Ball, is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in three events. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal as a member of the winning U.S. 4×100-meter medley relay team. Ball is a former world record holder in the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke events, and is remembered as a teenage star who was the dominant female breaststroke swimmer of her generation.
Kaye Marie Hall, later known by her married name Kaye Greff, is an American former competition swimmer, two-time Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in two events.
Nathalie Schneyder is an American competitor and Coach in synchronized swimming and was an Olympic champion in team competition in 1996 in Atlanta. She also won team golds in FINA World competitions and Pan Pacific competitions. She competed in team, individual, and duet synchronized competition.
Eleanor Suzanne Daniel, also known by her married name Ellie Drye, is an American former competition swimmer, four-time Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder.
Matthew Haynes Vogel is a swim coach of over forty years, an American former competition swimmer for the University of Tennessee, a 1976 Olympic gold medalist in the butterfly and medley relay, and a former world record-holder in the 4x100-meter medley relay event.
Mary Jane Parks is an American former competition swimmer and 1956 Olympic Bronze medalist.
Sharon Evans Finneran, also known by her married name Sharon Rittenhouse, is an American former Hall of Fame competitive swimmer, and was a 1964 Olympic silver medalist in the 400-meter individual medley, having set a world record in the event in 1962. She also set world records in the 200-meter butterfly, and 200-meter breaststroke, making her the first woman to hold world records in three events.
Patricia Sarena Caretto, also known by her married name Patricia Brown, is an American former competition swimmer, 1968 Olympic competitor, and 1964 world record-holder in two distance freestyle events. She is a former world record holder in the women's 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle, having set world records in those events on eight occasions.
Jennifer Ann Bartz, also known by her married name Jennifer McGillin, is an American former competition swimmer who took fourth place at the 200 and 400-meter individual medley, for the United States at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. Later, swimming for the University of Miami as one of the first women to receive a collegiate swimming scholarship, she helped lead the team to the AIAW national collegiate swimming championships in 1975, before transferring to swim for Hall of Fame coach George Haines at UCLA her Junior and Senior year.
Philip Edward Long was born December 6, 1948, in Washington D.C., and was an American former competition swimmer.
Alexandra Hauka Nitta, usually referred to as "Sandra" or "Sandy" is an American former competition swimmer who represented the United States in the 100-meter breaststroke as a 15-year-old at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Highly instrumental in the development and advancement of women's Water Polo in America, she had a forty-year career as a water polo coach, and administrator with an induction into the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame in 1998. In her longest coaching assignments, she was the US Women’s National Team Water Polo coach from 1980-1994, and coached Team Vegas/Henderson from 1994-99 and from 2000-2014, later serving as a Director.
| Men's Team |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Women's Team | ||
| Staff |
| |
|
