Kevin O'Halloran
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Kevin O'Halloran (March 3, 1937 – July 5, 1976) was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1950s, who won a gold medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. O'Halloran was the first Western Australian to win an Olympic gold medal. O'Halloran learnt to swim in his home town, before moving to Perth during his secondary schooling, where he began serious competitive swimming training. Competitive swimming was not well developed in Western Australia, with competitions being held in muddy river pools, and in late 1955 O'Halloran decided to move to the east coast to make a thorough attempt to qualify for the Melbourne Olympics. His new coach Frank Guthrie completely overhauled his training regimen and within a year, O'Halloran had reduced his times by over ten seconds. He qualified in the relay and the 400 m for the Olympics. O'Halloran led off the Australian quartet on the way to a new world record before coming sixth in the 400 m. Thereafter O'Halloran's career was beset by ear problems and he retired in 1958 after failing to qualify for the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. O'Halloran died in 1976 after tripping and accidentally shooting himself.
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[edit] Early years
After his birth in Katanning, O'Halloran grew up on his family's 9000 acre sheep property at Kojonup, 40 km to the west of his birthplace, on a property established by his grandfather in 1900. He had two brothers and a sister, and after his father enlisted in the Second World War, his mother could no longer run the farm by herself, so they moved to Katanning for seven years.[1]
Katanning was one of the few country towns in Western Australia which had a public swimming pool. O'Halloran learnt to swim along with his siblings, often defeating boys in the town who were four years his senior. At the age of eight, he was taught to swim by his teacher at Katanning State Primary School, herself a previous youth champion, who identified his talent. The boom in wool prices at the time of the Korean War inflated his family's income and allowed them the opportunity of sending him to Guildford Grammar School in Perth. At the age of 14, he won five events in the school championships, and led the school to its first State Championship in 29 years. He also competed for his school in Australian rules football and rowing.[1]
O'Halloran attracted the notice of the leading Western Australian coach Don Gravenall, but his schoolwork limited him to a few weeks of intense training with his coach over the Christmas period. At 15 years of age in 1952, O'Halloran began to make his mark at state level. He again played a major role in leading Guildford to the interschool championship and was second in the individual points tally. He won the 100 m freestyle, 50 50m breaststroke and 400 m freestyle.[1]
Competitive swimming was slow to develop in Western Australia and O'Halloran's state debut came in 1952, only the second time it had been held. He won the junior 110 yd freestyle and butterfly and was second in the open 110 yd freestyle, in a muddy river pool at Crawley. The state of the arena was such that the bottom could not be seen and jellyfish lurked in the area, sometimes climbing onto the swimmers' bodies. When O'Halloran returned to his home, he often trained in a muddy waterhole.[2]
[edit] Swimming career
In 1953, he was second in the 110 yd and 440 yd freestyle events at the State Championships in the open division and won the 110 yd breaststroke and 110 and 220 yd freestyle in the junior division, cutting six seconds from the state record in the 440 yd event. He was selected for the state team for the Australian Championships, but his parents and headmaster decided that his schooling was more important, much to the chagrin of Gravenall. In 1954, O'Halloran he was the state champion in the 110 yd and 220 yd freestyle, and in 1955 added the 440 yd individual medley. In his final year of secondary school, O'Halloran was the School Captain and led its swimming and shooting team, and was a member of its rowing eights in the Head of the River. O'Halloran finally made his debut at the Australian Championships in Adelaide, which resulted in a fifth placing in the 110 yd freestyle, behind Jon Henricks and John Devitt.[2]
Upon the recommendation of his parents in late 1955, O'Halloran moved to Sydney to train with Frank Guthrie in an attempt to qualify for the 1956 Summer Olympics, which were to be held in Melbourne, Australia.[3] O'Halloran boarded with a host family and worked in a wool store to pay his expenses. O'Halloran's initiation into Guthrie's training program was a testing time. After seeing O'Halloran's freestyle stroke for the first time, Guthrie asked him "Can you swim any other stroke? If you are going to swim for me you'll have to learn all over again."[2] O'Halloran adapted his technique and increased his training load to a more rigorous regime of around 10 km a day, something that was normal in the eastern states, but uncommon back on the west coast.[2] In a short time, he cut 17 s off his personal best time in the 440 yd freestyle, reducing it to 4 m 55 s. At the 1956 New South Wales championships, he finished third in the 220 yd freestyle behind Gary Chapman and Devitt, 10.0 s faster than the times he swam in Western Australia. He came fourth in both the 110 yd and 440 yd, being more than 30 s faster than his previous 440 yd best in Western Australia and breaching the 60 s barrier for the first time. At the Australian Championships, he came third in the 440y yd freestyle in a time of 4 m 37.8 s behind Murray Rose and Murray Garretty. Despite suffering from ear trouble, making him the fifth fastest swimmer in the world and earning an individual swim at the Olympics in the 400 m event.[4] O'Halloran also came fourth in the 220 yd in a time of 2 9.2 s to earn a berth on the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay squad. O'Halloran was expected to battle for the fourth relay position, with Rose, Henricks and Chapman regarded as certain to be included in the final quartet. Guthrie claimed at the end of the trials that O'Halloran was "the find of the recently held Australian Championships and the future swimmer for Australia. I am confident that we did not see Kevin's best times this season."[4]
[edit] 1956 Melbourne Olympics
- See also: Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Having arrived in Melbourne for the Olympics, along with Rose and Henricks, O'Halloran was rested in the heats of the relay.[4] Devitt, Chapman, Graham Hamilton and Garretty finished third in the heats behind Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and fifth overall behind Japan and the United States. Hamilton had swam a very slow time of 2 m 15.4 s.[5] Australia's final quartet was much stronger, with Rose being the 440 m Olympic champion and Henricks and Devitt being the gold and silver medallists in the 100 m freestyle. O'Halloran's inclusion at the expense of Chapman was the subject of controversy, as Chapman had won bronze in the 100 m event and was the national 220 yd champion.[1] The move also meant that the team of Devitt, Rose, Chapman and Henricks that had won the event for New South Wales in the Australian Championships would be broken up.[3] O'Halloran led off the team and put Australia in the lead with a time of 2 m 6.8 s, a lead of 0.7 s over the Soviet Union and 1.2 s over the United States. The lead was never relinquished and steadily increased, ending in a new world record time of 8 m 23.6 s, almost eight second ahead of the second placed Americans.[1]
At the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, he qualified for the 400 m final, having won his heat in a time of 4 m 36.8 s. He cut almost 4 s off his previous best to miss the bronze medal by 0.4 s to the United States' George Breen, in a race won by fellow Australian Murray Rose.[3] O'Halloran had reduced Breen's lead over him by 1.3 s in the last 100 m but it was not enough as he finished in a time of 4 m 32.9 s.[4] O'Halloran returned to Perth after the games and was welcomed by a motorcade and civic reception. He was named as one of the five Western Australian Sportspeople of the Year. Despite his achievements, the calls for Western Australia to build an Olympic standard swimming pool did not compel the authorities to create such a facility until Perth hosted the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.[4]
[edit] Later years
In 1958, his parents drove all the way to Sydney to watch him swim at the Australian Championships, but a recurring ear infection stopped him from performing at his peak. He missed selection for the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff and retired after the long journey back across the Nullarbor. Upon arrival in Kojonup, he was reported to have simply said, "I've had enough."[4] O'Halloran then turned his full attention to working on the family property. In 1976, his body was discovered near a fence on his property next to a rifle. He had accidentally shot himself after tripping as he climbed through the fence.[3] O'Halloran had never married. The 50 m pool at Kojonup was named the Kevin O'Halloran Memorial Pool in his honour. He was the first Western Australian to win any Olympic medal.[4]
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Andrews, Malcolm (2000). Australia at the Olympic Games. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. ISBN 0-7333-0884-8.
- Howell, Max (1986). Aussie Gold. Brooks Waterloo. ISBN 0-86440-680-0.
