Beth Barr

Elizabeth Cynthia Barr (born December 17, 1971), later known by her married name Beth Isaak, is an American former competition swimmer for the University of Texas who was a backstroke specialist and 1988 Seoul Olympic silver medalist for the United States in the women's 4×100-meter medley relay. After her swimming career ended, she worked as a lobbyist, and in public relations in Washington D.C., and Phoenix, Arizona, and in 2010 returned to her native Pensacola to teach and coach swimming with her company BARRacuda Swimming Works. While swimming for the Greater Pensacola Club at the highly competitive U.S. Nationals in March 1986 in Orlando, Florida, Barr won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 55.73. She attended Woodham High School in her early High School Years through December, 1986, but was reassigned or transferred to Booker T. Washington High School by October 1987 where she graduated in 1989.

Barr broke the state record at the 1986 Florida State Championship in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 56.54 in the preliminaries, though she later placed second in the event in the finals. At the 1986 Florida State Championship, she also swam on Woodham High's second place team in the 200-yard medley relay. She was subsequently named "Girls Athlete of the Year" by the Pensacola Journal.

1988 Olympic silver medal As a 16-year-old Junior at Booker T. Washington High School, she represented the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. As the youngest member of the American women's team, she won a silver medal performing the backstroke leg for the second-place U.S. team in the women's 4×100-meter medley relay together with teammates Janel Jorgensen (butterfly), Tracey McFarlane (breaststroke), and Mary Wayte (freestyle). With Barr leading off the team in backstroke, Mary Wayte swam the last leg, and finished with a combined team time of 4:07.9. East Germany, the former world record holder, won the gold with a comfortable four second margin of victory over the American team.

Individually, Barr also competed in the women's 100-meter backstroke, finishing fifth in the event final with a time of 1:02.78, and the women's 200-meter backstroke, finishing fourth in 2:12.39. Two other fellow Greater Pensacola Aquatic Club swimmers competed with her at the Olympics that year, backstroker Andrea Hayes, who also swam for the University of Texas, and Daniel Waters.

Three years after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, in 1991, 20 East German coaches admitted the East German women's Olympic swimming team had been systematically using anabolic steroids in their training. As East German women swimmers finished ahead of her in both her medley relay silver medal, and her fourth place 200-meter backstroke finish, many have speculated that if the German women had been stripped of their medals due to the use of steroids, Barr might have won a silver in the 200-meter backstroke, where two East German women finished ahead of her and a gold in her second place finish with the medley relay where the East German women finished first. She might also have possibly placed third, and won another bronze medal in her 100-meter backstroke event, where she finished fifth with two East German women finishing ahead of her. Her recovery involved several surgeries which required plates, screws, and skin grafts, and took months of physical therapy to rehabilitate.

She won the national title in the 100 back at the 1986 Short Course Nationals. In competition at the Goodwill Games in 1986, she placed fifth in the 100 backstroke and seventh in the 200 backstroke. In 1990 she captured the 100 and 200 back in Rome at the Len Cup Meet. In U.S. competition, she placed first in the 200 back and third in the 100 back at Long Course Nationals. She later moved with her husband to Phoenix, Arizona around 1999,

As of 2020, she was still living in Pensacola. In 2021, she supported a bill in the State of Florida that was intended to promote water safety lessons and swimming for children.