From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Douglas Albert Russell (born February 20, 1946) is an Olympic Champion butterfly swimmer from the United States, who won the first ever gold medal in the men's 100m Butterfly, an event which made its debut at the 1968 Summer Olympics. He also won another gold in the 4x100m Medley Relay.
[edit] Early Swimming
Born in Midland, Texas, USA, Russell attended the University of Texas - Arlington where he swam in intercollege competition.
Doug Russell began swimming at high school for Midland, Texas, swimming in the new 50m "Alamo" pool built by the city in 1962. It was later renamed in his honour to the "Douglas Russell Swimming Pool"[1] He was an all round swimmer at both High school and later at Arlington, swimming competively in Butterfly, Backstroke and Individual medley events. Other school swimmers of the era remember him as a tough competettor who was hard to beat but who brought out the best in swimmers around him.[2]
At the University of Texas - Arlington, Russell swam under coach Don Easterling in the Burford Swim team.[3] Other notable members who joined the team were 1972 Olympic Champion Jerry Heidenreich who came to swim specifically with Russell on the team. [4]
[edit] References
|
Olympic champions in men's 4x100 m medley relay |
|
1960: USA (McKinney, Hait, Larson, Farrell) | 1964: USA (Mann, Craig, Schmidt, Clark) | 1968: USA (Hickcox, McKenzie, Russell, Walsh) | 1972: USA (Stamm, Bruce, Spitz, Heidenreich) | 1976: USA (Naber, Hencken, Vogel, Montgomery) | 1980: Australia (Kerry, Evans, Tonelli, Brooks) | 1984: USA (Carey, Lundquist, Morales, Gaines) | 1988: USA (Berkoff, Schroeder, Biondi, Jacobs) | 1992: USA (Rouse, Diebel, Morales, Olsen) | 1996: USA (Rouse, Linn, Henderson, Hall, Jr.) | 2000: USA (Krayzelburg, Moses, Crocker, Hall, Jr.) | 2004: USA (Peirsol, Hansen, Crocker, Lezak)
|
|
