Semyon Belits-Geiman

Semyon Viktorovich Belits-Geiman (; born 16 February 1945) is a former Soviet freestyle swimmer. He set a world record in the 800 m freestyle, and won two Olympic medals.

Early life Belits-Geiman is Jewish and was born in Moscow, where he attended the Transport Engineering Institute, studied journalism, and worked as a journalist for the magazines Sports Life in Russia and Soviet Sport.

Swimming career

Belits-Geiman began swimming when he was eight. He was affiliated with the Moscow club Dynamo, and became a member of the Soviet swimming team in 1962. He competed at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, and finished in seventh place in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay and eighth in the 400 meter freestyle.

In 1966, he won the gold medal against three of the best American freestyle swimmers in a US vs USSR competition in Moscow. In 1966, he was ranked number three in the world in the 1,500-meter freestyle. That was 4.1 seconds faster than the former record set by Australian Murray Rose in 1962.

Due to a Soviet boycott, he was unable to defend his title at the 1967 Universiade in Tokyo. Americans Greg Charlton and Mike Burton. He did, however, win silver medals in the 400 and 1500 meter freestyle at the 1967 Little Olympic swimming competitions held at the CDOM aquatic center in Mexico City.

He won a silver medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City in the 4×100 freestyle relay (3:34.2), swimming the lead leg, and a bronze medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay (8:01.6), swimming the second leg. He created a program to increase coordination and flexibility which was used by Australian ice dancing champions Natalie Buck and Trent Nelson-Bond in the early 2000s.

Accolades In 2017, he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Personal He met his wife, Russian ice dancing coach and former competitive ice dancer Natalia Dubova, when he covered one of her competitions as a sportswriter.