Steve Clark

Stephen Edward Clark (June 17, 1943 – April 14, 2026) was an American competition swimmer for Yale University, Olympic champion, and onetime world record-holder.

Yale University Clark attended Yale University, where he swam for coach Philip Moriarty's Yale Bulldogs swimming and diving team in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Ivy League competition. During his tenure at Yale, he won five NCAA titles. He also captured six individual and five AAU relay championships while swimming for the Santa Clara Swim Club, under Hall of Fame Coach George Haines. Clark was the Santa Clara Club's first outstanding male swimmer, and the first of many outstanding swimmers mentored by Haines. A sprint specialist with exceptionally efficient flip turns, he set nine world records, but would have set more as short course records were not accepted for world records at the time. As a senior, he was the Yale swim team captain; he graduated from Yale with his bachelor's degree in 1964. In 2005, he donated one of his three Olympic gold medals to his alma mater.

He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1966.

Depression Clark faced depression that he and many Olympians experience when their careers come to an end. The symptoms peak every four years during Winter and Summer Olympic Games. This is called Gold Medal Syndrome. In 2012, in an unpublished essay he wrote he was feeling depressed between 1966 the year he retired and 1996 for 30 years and "faked feeling normal".

Death Clark died from complications of Parkinson's disease on April 14, 2026, at the age of 82, his wife Betsy Clark said