Anita Nall

Nadia Anita Louise Nall (born July 21, 1976), also known by her married name Anita Nall-Richesson, is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder. As a 16-year-old at the 1992 Summer Olympics, Nall won a gold medal in the women's 4×100-meter medley relay, a silver medal in the women's 100-meter breaststroke, and a bronze in the women's 200-meter breaststroke. Earlier that year, she broke the world record in the women's 200-meter breaststroke, as a 15-year-old at the U.S. Olympic trials.

Early years Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1976, Nall is named after record-setting gymnast Nadia Comăneci, who competed that year in the 1976 Summer Olympics as a 14-year-old. As a girl, Nall moved with her family to Towson, Maryland. She trained in the late 1980s and early 1990s at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, the same place where another Towson teen swimming sensation, Michael Phelps, trained a decade later and who, like Nall, would set a world swimming record at age 15 (in the 200 m butterfly).

Competitive swimming career While competing for a place on the U.S. swimming team for the 1992 Summer Olympics, Nall set a then-world record at the Olympic trials. Murray Stephens, her coach at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, said of Nall after she broke the world record, "Physically she's a strong girl. Competitively, she's probably 25. She knows how to compete and she likes to compete. She likes to swim aggressively." The head coach of Northwestern University's women's swim team was quoted just prior to the Olympics that year as saying, "Anita has technically a perfect breaststroke. The breaststroke is very much a lower body stroke where you really use your legs. She uses her body perfectly and gets the most out of her stroke technique-wise".

Personal life and later years Nall graduated from Towson Catholic High School in 1994 and then earned a bachelor's degree in communications and Spanish at Arizona State University, graduating in 2002. The couple has two children, son Luther (born 2003) and daughter Sunny (born 2005).