The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad and commonly known as Moscow 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union. The games were the first to be staged in an Eastern Bloc country, as well as the first Olympic Games and only Summer Olympics to be held in a Slavic language-speaking country. They were also the only Summer Olympic Games to be held in a self-proclaimed communist country until the 2008 Summer Olympics held in China. These were the final Olympic Games under the IOC Presidency of Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin before he was succeeded by Juan Antonio Samaranch, a Spaniard, shortly afterwards.
A relay race is a racing competition where members of a team take turns completing parts of racecourse or performing a certain action. Relay races take the form of professional races and amateur games. Relay races are common in running, orienteering, swimming, cross-country skiing, biathlon, or ice skating. In the Olympic Games, there are several types of relay races that are part of track and field. Relay race, also called Relay, a track-and-field sport consisting of a set number of stages (legs), usually four, each leg run by a different members of a team. The runner finishing one leg is usually required to pass the next runner a stick-like object known as a "baton" while both are running in a marked exchange zone. In most relays, team members cover equal distances: Olympic events for both men and women are the 400-metre and 1,600-metre relays. Some non-Olympic relays are held at distances of 800 m, 3,200 m, and 6,000 m. In the less frequently run medley relays, however, the athletes cover different distances in a prescribed order—as in a sprint medley of 200, 200, 400, 800 metres or a distance medley of 1,200, 400, 800, 1,600 metres.
The 14th FINA World Championships were held on 16–31 July 2011 in Shanghai, China at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. The 2011 World Championships featured five aquatics disciplines: swimming, water polo, diving, open water, and synchronized swimming. At this championships, synchronized swimmer Natalia Ishchenko, of Russia, was the most decorated competitor winning all six gold medals of her events, at solo, duet and team routines. These championships served as qualifying stages for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Canada, represented by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. Canadian athletes have competed in every Summer Olympic Games since 1900, except the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because of the country's support for the United States-led boycott. Canada sent a total of 281 athletes to the Games to compete in 24 sports. The COC set a goal of finishing in the top 12 for total medals; but the nation failed to achieve this, finishing with a total of 18 medals. Canada matched its total medal count from Beijing 2008. At London, with the initiation of its "Own the Podium" programme, Canada finished 13th in total medals, thus improving on its 14th place performance in Beijing while falling somewhat short of its self-declared goal of 12th position. It finished the event with 18 medals: two gold, six silver and 10 bronze.
The Women's 3x50 metre medley relay CP C was one of the events held in swimming at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem.
Sandra James is a Zimbabwean former athlete, who won eleven medals across four different sports at the Paralympic Games.
Switzerland was one of the seventeen nations that competed at the inaugural Summer Paralympic Games in 1960 held in Rome, Italy, from September 19 to 24, 1960. Preparations for the Games began two years prior in 1958 to stage what was at the time called the 9th Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games. The team finished thirteenth in the medal table with a total of four medals, one gold and three silver. The Swiss team consisted of two athletes: Denis Favre, a man who competed in athletics and swimming events, and Simone Knusli, a woman who competed in swimming.
Also known as the 13th Stoke Mandeville Games, the 1964 Summer Paralympics was the 2nd Paralympic Games. Hosted in Tokyo, the games ran from 8 to 12 November. Australia won a total of 30 medals and finished fourth on the medal tally behind Italy (3rd), Great Britain (2nd) and the United States (1st). Australia competed in 6 of the 9 sports at the Games, winning medals in each of those sports, but was most successful in the pool, winning a majority of their medals in swimming events.
Katerine Savard is a Canadian competitive swimmer who specializes in women's butterfly events and freestyle relay. She holds several Canadian national records in the butterfly over the 50-, 100-, and 200-metre distances in both the short and long courses. Savard also holds the Canadian junior butterfly record in the 200-metre event. She won the gold medal at the Summer Universiade in the 100-metre butterfly in 2012, while also garnering a medal in the 50-metre butterfly at the 2013 Universiade. Savard won gold at the Commonwealth Games in the 100-metre butterfly in Glasgow, where she set the Commonwealth record in the process. At the same games she also won a bronze as a member of the women's 4×100-metre medley relay team.
Maddison Gae Elliott, is an Australian swimmer. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, she became the youngest Australian Paralympic medallist by winning bronze medals in the women's 400 m and 100 m freestyle S8 events. She then became the youngest Australian gold medallist when she was a member of the women's 4 × 100 m freestyle relay 34 points team. At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, she won three gold and two silver medals.
Stephanie Millward, is a British Paralympic swimmer.
The swimming events of the 15th FINA World Aquatics Championships were held July 28 – August 4, 2013, in Barcelona, Spain. The competition was held in a long course pool inside the Palau Sant Jordi. It featured 40 LCM events, split evenly between males and females. Swimming was one of the five aquatic disciplines at the championships.
Chantal Jean van Landeghem is a Canadian competition swimmer who specializes in the freestyle and butterfly events. She won a bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics as part of the women's 4 x 100 m relay, this was Canada's first relay medal in that event for forty years. Van Landeghem is the reigning 100-metre freestyle and 4 × 100-metre freestyle champion in the Pan American Games, setting games records in both events. Van Landeghem is currently studying and competing through the University of Georgia. She was a competitor for Manitoba at the 2009 Canada Summer Games where she won two gold, a silver, and a bronze medal.
Emma Jennifer McKeon, is an Australian competitive swimmer. She is a four-time world record holder, one current and three former, in the 4x100 metre freestyle relay. Her total career haul of 11 Olympic medals following the 2020 Olympic Games made her Australia's most decorated Olympian and included one gold medal from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and four gold medals from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. With four gold and three bronze medals she was the most decorated athlete across all sports at the 2020 Summer Olympics, and tied for the most medals won by a woman in a single Olympic Games. She has also won 17 medals, including four gold medals, at the World Aquatics Championships; and a record 20 medals, including 14 gold, at the Commonwealth Games.
Kyle Chalmers, is an Australian competitive swimmer. He is a world record holder in the short course 100 metre freestyle, 4×100 metre medley relay, and long course 4×100 metre mixed freestyle relay. He is the Oceanian and Australian record holder in the short course 50 metre butterfly and 50 metre freestyle.
The rate of participation of women in the Olympic Games has been increasing since their first participation in 1900. Some sports are uniquely for women, others are contested by both sexes, while some older sports remain for men only. Studies of media coverage of the Olympics consistently show differences in the ways in which women and men are described and the ways in which their performances are discussed. The representation of women on the International Olympic Committee has run well behind the rate of female participation, and it continues to miss its target of a 20% minimum presence of women on their committee.
Marie Claire Ross is a Canadian B3 classified para-swimmer who has a visual impairment and competed in the Paralympic Games and the IPC World Swimming Championships. She began swimming at the age of 14 and joined a swimming club in her home town of London, Ontario. Ross won four medals: one silver and three bronze medals in the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona. She earned six more medals with three bronze medals, two gold medals and one silver medal in the 1996 Summer Paralympics at Atlanta. Ross has also won a silver medal and a bronze medal at the 1994 IPC World Swimming Championships in Valletta.
Summer McIntosh is a Canadian competitive swimmer. McIntosh first drew recognition when, at age 14, she was the youngest member of the Canadian team for the 2020 Summer Olympics, where she achieved a notable fourth-place finish in the 400 metre freestyle. The following year she became the youngest world champion in swimming in over a decade, and the first Canadian to win two gold medals at a single World Championships, for which she was dubbed a "teen swimming sensation."
Patricia Hennin is a Canadian C4-category Paralympic swimmer, track and field athlete and para association football player who has the brain disease cerebral palsy that has paralyzed her legs. She won silver medals in each of the women's 50-metre and 200-metre freestyle C4 competitions and a single bronze medal in the women's 100 freestyle C4 event at the 1984 Summer Paralympics in New York City. Hennin also won medals at the regional and national level in both Canada and the United States, setting multiple class records.
Kim Kilpatrick is a Canadian para-swimmer and therapist with a visual impairment. She won the gold medal in the women's 4 x 100-metre individual medley A competition as well as the silver medal in the women's 4 x 100-metre freestyle relay A-B and the women's 4 x 100-metre medley relay A-B events alongside Lisa Bentz, Yvette Michel and Andrea Rossi at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem, Netherlands.
