Ann Curtis

Ann Elizabeth Curtis (March 6, 1926 – June 26, 2012), known after 1949 by her married name Ann Elisabeth Cuneo was an American competition swimmer and two-time Olympic champion at the 1948 London games. She would later have a career as a swim coach opening the Ann Curtis Swim Club and School of Swimming in Terra Linda, California. (originally named the Crystal Palace Salt Water Baths) was opened at 775 Lombard Street,

Anne developed more quickly under the direction of Hall of Fame Coach Charlie Sava as a member of San Francisco's Crystal Plunge Swimming Club that practiced at a wide 50-yard pool, the Terrace Plunge, now the Tonga Room at Fairmont San Francisco, a hotel in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood. Sava, aware of her potential, managed Curtis for eight years, introducing modern training techniques. Taking her under his wing when she was 14, Silva had Curtis train in the pool five hours split into morning and afternoon sessions. Silva's pool training included numerous sets with repeat intervals and occasional resistance training, usually out of the pool. She later described Sava as an effective and innovative coach, but a demanding task manager. Already referred to as "The World's Greatest Woman Swimmer", in 1944, at age 18, she became the first woman, as well as the first swimmer, to receive the coveted James E. Sullivan Award, recognizing her as the outstanding American amateur athlete of the year.

1948 Olympics Considered that year's most successful woman swimmer, Curtis competed at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, England, winning a medal in every freestyle swimming race in which women were allowed to enter at the time.

During her career she set five world and 56 U.S. records, and earned 30 National Championship titles.

Post Olympic careers Curtis swam professionally from 1948-1951 after retiring from competition. She began touring with the Nick Kahler Famous Sports and Boat Show where she demonstrated competitive strokes and raced with 1936 backstroke Olympic gold medalist Adolph Kiefer, who worked organizing talent for the show. She would please the crowd swimming with a seal, who always outswam her and Kiefer. She then toured with Sheehan's Aqua Follies, featuring music, and elaborate costumes, and would later make a commercial for Woodbury Soap. She ceased working after 1951, with the birth of her first child.

Coaching In 1959, after retiring from competition and starting her family, she opened the Ann Curtis Swim Club and School of Swimming in Tera Linda with her husband. The couple took out a loan, bought the land, and built the facility that featured a 75-foot competition pool and a smaller pool of 50 feet. Once under way, the Cuneo's bought additional land to build an adjacent home. In 1983, the club had ten teachers, 950 students, and its own swim club that had 100 families. A successful venture, the swim club mentored several future champions and operated over twenty years. One of her outstanding swimmers was 1972 Munich Olympian and future Coach Rick Demont who swam with Curtis in his early years.

She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1966, and the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1983.

Curtis died at her home in San Rafael, California on June 26, 2012, aged 86.

Records set in 1943–1947