Gail Neall

Gail Neall (born 2 August 1955), also known by her married name Gail Yeo, is an Australian former medley swimmer who raced in the 1970s. She won a gold medal in the 400-metre individual medley at the 1972 Summer Olympics in world record time.

Early years

The youngest of four children, Neall's family moved to Brisbane in the year of her birth. Her father Allan was a graduate of the University of Queensland and had found a job with an oil company. Her brother was 13 years older than she was, while her two sisters were twelve and eight years her senior, respectively. Her family had a backyard pool, something that was rather uncommon during the 1950s in Australia. Neall was initially timid, and would not take her feet from the bottom of the pool. When asked about who taught her to swim, she would attribute it to her mother Thelma, who could not swim at all.

Neall had her first swimming instruction from Marlene Town, a former Queensland champion. Despite her progress, her school swimming coach did not regard her as suitable for the Nundah Primary School team, and went to the trouble of filming her breaststroke technique to show the other children what not to do.

Neall continued her rise after the Commonwealth Games by winning the medley double and a silver medal in the 200-metre butterfly at the 1971 New South Wales Championships. At the winter nationals, she won the 400-metre medley and took silver in both the 200-metre medley and the 200-metre backstroke. She finally broke through for her first title at the 1971 Australian Championships in Hobart, taking the 400-metre individual medley in a time of 5 m 16.5 s.

Neall was considered an outsider in her pet event, the 400-metre individual medley, with Americans Jennifer Bartz, Lyn Vidali and Mary Montgomery, and Canadian Leslie Cliff fancied to take the gold medal. Neall had a mediocre heat swim; although she won it in a time of 5 m 11.89 s,

Neall initially contested the lead in the butterfly leg with Bartz and Vidali, taking the lead in the second 50 metres of the first stroke after the two Americans had led in the first lap. Neall turned at the end of the butterfly in first place in a time of 1 m 8.64 s. She extended her lead to a bodylength at the end of the backstroke leg, before going into the breaststroke, her weakest leg. Despite being expected to falter in the breaststroke, Neall managed to maintain parity, and still narrowly led at the change into freestyle with a split of 3 m 55.51 s, having repelled attack by Cliff and Bartz. Cliff attacked in the first half of the freestyle leg and took a narrow lead at the final turn, before Neall fought back to draw level with 30 metres to go. The pair stroked in tandem for the next ten metres before Neall drew away to win in a time of 5 m 02.97 s. It was a new world record, and improved on her personal best by 7 seconds as the top four finishers all lowered the world record. Neall had defeated Cliff by 0.60 s.

She was a schoolmate of fellow Munich gold medal winning swimmer Shane Gould at Turramurra High School on the north shore of Sydney. Turramurra High School has named two of their sporting houses after Gail Neall and Shane Gould. Overshadowed, she did not receive a civic reception from the local council upon her return to Australia.

In 1974, she returned to Australia and resumed training with Gathercole. She won both medley events and the 200-metre butterfly and was selected for the Commonwealth Games.