Shelley Mann

Shelley Isabel Mann (October 15, 1937 – March 24, 2005) was an American competition swimmer, who overcame childhood polio to win the first gold medal ever awarded in the women's 100-meter butterfly event at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. She was also a member of the 1956 U.S. Olympic team that won the silver medal for the women's 4×100-meter freestyle relay.

Early years Mann was born one of two daughters in Long Island, New York on October 13, 1937, to Hamilton and Isabel Lanford Mann. Her father, with roots in Virginia, was in the U.S. Navy during World War II and would reach the rank of Commander. He served as the Director of the USA Security Agency's division of Computer Communications from 1955-71.

At age six, Mann contracted polio while living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She spent weeks in the hospital and was left with a paralyzed right leg. In the late 1940s after WWII, her father returned the family to their native Virginia, and lived in the Arlington area. At the age of 11, she learned to swim. At the age of 12, Mann was swimming competitively, and at 14, won the first of her 24 AAU national championships in the freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, and individual medley events.

At 15, Mann held multiple world records, though these are currently not FINA recognized as they were set before 1957. Yorzyk recalled that Mann had trouble breaking bad habits when transitioning from butterfly-breaststroke to butterfly. Other Walter Reed swimmers who qualified for the Olympics at the trials included Susan Douglas, Betty Mullens Brey and Mary Jane Sears.

At 19, in the preliminary heats of the December, 1956 Melbourne Olympics, Mann set a record time of 1:11.2 in the 100-meter butterfly. In the finals, she won the inaugural 100 metres butterfly event, with an Olympic record time of 1:11.0, sweeping the event with two other American team members. Mann was also a member of the U.S. team that won the silver medal for the women's 4×100-meter freestyle relay that swam a combined time of 4:19.2. Mann swam second, and helped the American team to gain ground on the dominant Australian squad who had gained a lead over the Americans through the efforts of their lead off swimmer Dawn Fraser. Both the Australian team and the American team finished in combined times under the prior world record in the event.

While studying at the American University in Washington, D.C., she remained with the Walter Reed Swim Club under young Hall of Fame Coach Stan Tinkham. The swim team trained at 6:00am because the Walter Reed medical hospital pool was used by the patients in the afternoon, though the evening time of 4:00 pm was later adopted as a practice time as well. She later founded her own club, the Shelley Mann Swim School in Arlington, Virginia.

Honors Mann received the National B'nai B'rith Award for “high principle and achievement in sports”, an award of merit in Aquatics from the Los Angeles Times, and a goodwill tour of New Zealand from the New Zealand Swimming Association. She was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1984.

In a more distinctive honor, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "honor swimmer" in 1966.