Swimming Blogs - Chris DeSantis

For my second post of the week I thought I’d continue my Oympic retrospective with a look at one of the most memorable years for one of the worst possible reasons. In 1980 the United States selected an Olympic team for swimming that never got to swim. A government enforced boycott prevented the athletes from competing in Moscow after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. This article will cover not only the highlights of the 1980 trials but also serve to feature the athletes who missed out on their only chance to swim in the Olympics and the farce that was Women’s swimming at the Moscow games.
The women’s team was as strong as it had ever been, powered by two swimmers whose names often get tossed into the discussion of the greatest of all time that I posted about earlier. First and foremost, a 17 year old Tracy Caulkins was entering her prime. She won both IMs and both breaststrokes at the meet, as well as taking second in the 100 fly. In the IM’s her margins of victory were 3.26 and 7.20 respectively. Mary T Meagher would continue her assault on the fly record books by lowering her own world record in the 200 fly to 2:06.32. Prior to Meagher the world record in the event had stood at 2:09.87. Cynthia Woodhead, youth sensation and world record holder in the 200 free, qualified in that event as well as the 100, 400 and 800 free. Kim Linehan was the world’s best in both the 400 and 800 free and qualified in those events.
Aside from the legendary names there were a number of female swimmers who enjoyed long careers and others who sadly have faded from memory, never to experience Olympic glory. Jill Sterkel qualified in the 100 free, and would go on to compete in the 1984 and 1988 games. In many ways she was a pioneer for future female sprinters. Prior to Sterkel it was very uncommon for female sprinters to compete in more than two Olympics. For swimmers like Libby Kinkead (200 Back), Terri Baxter (100 Breaststroke) and Susan Walsh (100 Back), there were no second chances. Baxter and Walsh would come heartbreakingly close to making the team in 84, finishing 4th and 3rd respectively.
Of course, if these women had been allowed to compete in the 1980 games, they may have run into a wall of Babashoff-esque disappointment. East German women, in the midst of their structured doping fueled run of success, dominated in Moscow in the absence of the Americans. Only Linehan in the 400/800, Woodhead in the 200 and Meagher in the 100/200 fly would have been likely victors. The remaining members of the team would have likely failed to medal. If you enjoy revising old Olympic results by erasing the East Germans, the Americans would then be poised to medal in or win every event.
1980 may have been the dawn of the current era of women’s swimming in the United States. Today, as I highlighted in an earlier post, the USA women’s team is littered with both young and veteran talent. It has not always been so, in fact as recently as 1976 there were no American medalists beyond college age (22). In 1980, Shirly Babashoff, perhaps the world’s best swimmer in 1976 was only 23 years old but had long since retired. Swimmers like Sterkel and Meagher would start a trend towards women swimming at a high level through college and beyond.

Next week: Check back for a rundown of what 1980 held in store for American men