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SPORTS WEEKLY SPECIAL
OLYMPIC HERO
Swimming legend Mark Spitz’ Olympic legacy will last forever BY DAVID SAFFER Mark Spitz is a name synonymous with the Olympic Games after winning seven gold medals, all in world record times, for the United States at the Munich summer games of 1972. It took 36 years for his achievement to be surpassed by US swimmer Michael Phelps with eight golds at the Beijing Games in 2008. Phelps leads the all-time list with 23 golds from four summer games ahead of Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, Spitz and US athlete Carl Lewis, all on nine golds apiece. Spitz won two golds, silver and bronze at Mexico and his total would arguably have been far higher had he not retired after Munich aged just 22, but his sporting legacy endures to this day. Spitz’ endeavours came at the Olympics when eight Black September Palestinian terrorists held hostage and murdered 11 Israeli athletes. The atrocity blighted the Games and has been mourned at every Olympics since. But the Olympic spirit saw sport continue, and with Spitz being Jewish, his swimming heroics and Team Israel’s heartache historically sit alongside each other. Spitz’ life story is truly remarkable. His deeds have been written about time and again, yet, somewhat surprisingly, just one book, ‘The Extraordinary Life of an Olympic Champion’, chronicles it. Spitz himself pens the foreword to a seminal best-selling publication by Richard J. Foster in 2008. “Success depends in large part on the choices we make, good and bad,” he wrote. “I certainly didn’t make all the right choices, especially in the beginning of my international career, but when I made bad choices, I learned. I don’t think I could have achieved success at the 1972 Olympics in Munich if I hadn’t endured the anguish of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.” Spitz attributes the role fortune played as his family together with coaches Sherm Chavoor, George F. Haines and Doc Counsilman believed in him to succeed at the highest sports level. The ’72 Olympics changed Spitz’s life forever, launching him into celebrity and world-wide fame. Born in February 1950, the eldest of three children to Arnold and Lenore Spitz in Modesto, California, Mark was two when
Mark Spitz at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games
his family moved to Hawaii where he learnt swim at Waikiki Beach. Competing from the age of six at his local swim club, within three years he began training at Arden Hills Swim Club in Sacramento with Chavoor, who mentored him and six other Olympic medal winners. Before he was 10, Spitz held 17 national age-group records. After his family moved when he was 14 years old, Mark trained under Haines of the Santa Clara Swim Club. National high school records came in every stroke and distance. And the medals kept coming as he scooped four gold medals at the 1965 Maccabiah Games, his first international competition. Within 12 months the 100-meter butterfly title came at the National Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Championships, the first of 24 AAU honours. In 1967, Spitz set his first world record at a California event in 400-meter freestyle. He also won five gold medals at the ‘67 Pan
PHOTOS: WIKIMEDIA
American Games in Winnipeg, a record not surpassed for 40 years. The ‘68 Olympics brought gold medals in the 4 x 100m freestyle and 4 x 200m freestyle relay alongside 100m butterfly silver and 100m freestyle bronze. Another four gold medals came at the 1969 Maccabiah Games. Spitz trained with Counsilman, his coach in Mexico, at Indiana University, where he won eight National Collegiate Athletic Association Championships (NCAA) titles. In 1971, Spitz won the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the US. The swim team nicknamed him “Mark the Shark” and swimming immortality came a year later. The world watched in awe as Spitz won gold for 200m butterfly, 4 x 100m freestyle relay, 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 4 x 200m freestyle relay, 100m freestyle and 4 x 100m medley relay. The latter success came hours before
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Palestinian terrorists captured the Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympic Village. With athlete safety paramount, Spitz was flown of the country under heavy guard. Following the Olympics, Spitz landed major endorsement deals with Xerox, Kodak, General Motors and Swatch among a host of suiters. Spitz was courted on Prime Time TV, worked for ABC Sports, invested in real estate and enjoyed sailing in his spare time. Family has been central to his life. He married Suzy Weiner in 1973, the couple have two sons. Spitz was controversially not invited to the Beijing Olympics when Phelps finally passed his mark. But a few weeks after the closing ceremony he stated his pride at Phelps on NBC’s Today Show. The past decades have seen Spitz ranked 33 on ESPN’s “Sports Century 50 Greatest Athletes”, the only aquatic athlete to make the list. Other inductions include the International Swimming Hall of Fame, International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, US Olympic Hall of Fame, San Jose Sports Hall of Fame, National Jewish Museum Sports Hall of Fame, Long Beach City College Hall of Fame and Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame. Voted “Athlete of the Century” in water sports and one of six “Greatest Olympians” by Sports Illustrated in 2000, between ‘65 and ‘72, aside from his Olympic, Pan-American, AAU, NCAA, Maccabiah titles Spitz set 33 world records. 1972 is a year I’ve always recalled with great nostalgia. As a 12-year-old growing up in Leeds, it was an amazing time as my team, Leeds United, had just won the FA Cup, still the only time, and I’d be lucky enough to interview Billy Bremner et al years later about that great day. But the summer of ‘72 was the first time I watched the Olympics, and following GB, Mary Peters was the big story with Pentathlon gold. However, being Jewish, hearing about the Israeli terror attack struck a tragic chord. Olympic-wise Spitz was the big sporting story and I vividly remember watching all his races for gold. Naturally, I thought it was the norm! A respected motivational speaker and entrepreneur, all all-time sporting legend, whenever an Olympics comes around Spitz sits at the top table of excellence. He is still my Olympic sporting hero.
