Heather Petri

Heather Danielle Petri (born June 13, 1978) is a former American water polo player who won the silver medal with the US women's national team at the 2000 Summer Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics, a silver medal in Beijing in 2008 and a gold medal in London 2012. She is one of four female players who competed in water polo at four Olympics and one of two female athletes who won four Olympic medals in water polo. Her position was attacker. After he competitive water polo career, she has served as a high school and collegiate coach, most recently for her alma mater the University of California Berkeley.

University of California Berkeley In 1997 Petri was recruited by UC Berkeley coach Maureen O'Toole, where she played collegiate water polo from 1997 to 1999 and then in 2001. Petri earned All-America and All-MPSF honors at Cal in 1998 and 1999, under the continued direction of Head Coach Maureen O'Toole and Peter Asch, her former coach at Miramonte High. Petri finished UC Berkeley with 96 career goals. Pioneering women's recognition as collegiate water polo competitors, in the 1996–1997 season, Cal's women's program became a full varsity sport, transitioning from a Club team. Petri sat out her senior year at Berkeley in 1999–2000 as a member of the first US women's Olympic water polo team and graduated from Berkeley in 2002 with a degree in integrative biology. She returned to play with the Cal women's team in 2001.

Petri later played for Rari-Nantes, a professional water polo team in Florence, Italy, for the 2004–2005 and 2005–2006 seasons, and was a member of the US senior women's team.

2012 London gold medal At the 2012 London Olympics, Petri won the team gold medal under Head Coach Adam Krikorian, the first gold medal for the U.S. women's team. In the final match against the women's team from Spain, the U.S. team secured an 8–5 victory. The U.S. women had been considered one of the favored teams to medal in each Olympics since the introduction of women's water polo in 2000.

Coaching Having formerly coached at Long Beach State and her alma mater Miramonte High School, she began working as a volunteer coach and then an Assistant Coach at U. Cal Berkeley beginning in 2017, and later became an Associate Head Coach under her former Olympic teammate Coralie Simmons who was Berkeley Head Coach from 2015 to 2025. She became a member of the University of California Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013, and became a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2023.