Walter Richardson

1964 Tokyo Olympics Richardson competed in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, under Hall of Fame Olympic Head Coach James Counsilman, where he swam the butterfly leg for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the men's 4×100-meter medley relay. With an exceedingly strong team of eight, the American team dominated the event. For the preliminary 4x100-meter medley round, Rich McGeagh swam the lead-off backstroke leg, Richards swam the butterfly leg, fellow University of Minnesota swimmer Virg Luken swam the breaststroke leg, and Bob Bennett swam anchor freestyle, setting a new Olympic record of 4:05.1, despite being only a preliminary swim. The finals team of Thompson Mann at Backstroke, Bill Craig at breaststroke, Fred Schmidt at Butterfly, replacing Richardson, and Steve Clark as freestyle anchor completed their swim with a world record of 3:58.4, taking the gold medal. Steve Clark swam his 100-freestyle leg in a world record time of 52.4. The Unified team from Germany took the Silver medal with a 4:01.6 and the team from Australia took the bronze with a time of 4:02.3.

Richardson had a career as a physician.

Honors Richardson was admitted to the University of Minnesota Aquatic Hall of Fame in 1998. In Conference Honors, in 1965 he was a recipient of the Big Ten Student Athlete Award.