Shirley Babashoff

Shirley Frances Babashoff (born January 31, 1957) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in multiple events. Babashoff set six world records and earned a total of nine Olympic medals in her career. She won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, and she won the 1975 world championship in both the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle. During her career, she set 37 national records (17 individual and 20 relay) and for some time held all national freestyle records from the 100-meter to 800-meter events.

1972 Summer Olympics At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, she won golds in the 4x100-meter freestyle and medley relay and silver medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter individual freestyle events. In the 400-meter freestyle, finishing fourth behind East German competitor Gudrun Wegner, Shirley missed taking a bronze medal by only .48 seconds.

1976 Summer Olympics At the 1976 U.S. Olympic Trials, she won all the freestyle events, as well as the 400-meter individual medley, setting one world and six national records in the process. Her performance was considered one of the greatest achievements by any woman at an Olympic trial.

Personal life

Babashoff was one of four children of Jack Babashoff, a machinist, and Vera Slivkoff, a housewife. Her father had been a swimming instructor in Hawaii and always wanted his own children to become Olympians. Both of her parents are second-generation Spiritual Christians from Russia.

Shirley's doping accusations confirmed After the 1976 Olympics, Babashoff was occasionally referred to as "Surly Shirley" and described as a "sore loser" by the media because of her public accusations of drug cheating by the East German swimmers. She was later proven correct: most East German athletes were using performance-enhancing drugs, substantiated by investigators in the PBS documentary, "Secrets of the Dead: Doping for Gold." Most of the East German women's team were listed in the article. It is estimated that Babashoff was denied three gold medals as a result of cheating by East Germany. Her father intended to breed superior athletes, but they divorced two years later. She never remarried.

In 1982, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer,"