Michelle Ford
Height | 1.59 m (5 ft 3 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Weight | 54 kg (119 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Strokes | Freestyle, butterfly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Michelle Jan Ford
Ford, the second of four children grew up in the seaside Sydney suburb of Sans Souci, familiar with water, as her father Ian, a dentist, had narrowly missed Olympic selection as a yachtsman. After learning to swim at the age of six, she made national headlines when she swam the 100-yard freestyle in 61.5 seconds, at the age of 12, the fastest time ever set by a swimmer at such an age.
In January 1976, at the New South Wales Age Championships, at the North Sydney pool, she broke six state and three national records at the age of 13, two of which had previously been held by triple Olympic gold medallist Shane Gould. She proceeded to compete at the Australian Championships, where she won the 200-metre butterfly, despite standing only 140 centimetres, setting another national and Commonwealth record in the process. Another strong performance in the 200-metre freestyle lead to selection for both events for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. After a seven-week national training camp, she competed in her first Olympic race in the 200-metre freestyle, where her competition included the eventual champion, Kornelia Ender of East Germany.
After the Olympics, Ford scaled her training back in order to catch up on her studies at
At the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Ford won gold in the 200-metre butterfly, silver in the 400-metres and 800-metre freestyle, bronze in the 200-metre freestyle and 4x100-metre freestyle relay.
In 1979, Ford missed the Australian Championships in order to concentrate on her final year of high school. At the Soviet Spartakiad Games later in the year, she won three golds in the 200-metre butterfly and 400- and 800-metre freestyle. She then moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in the United States, to train and compete under Don Talbot on the American domestic circuit. Ford won the 800- and the 1500-metre freestyle, and was second in the 200- and 400-metre freestyle at the 1980 Australian Championships to gain selection for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Under public pressure from the Government of Australia, particularly Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who as the patron of the Australian Olympic Committee to boycott the Games in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
Ford chose to attend the games, competing in the 200-metre butterfly and the 400- and 800-metre freestyle. In the 200-metre butterfly, she qualified fastest, ahead of East Germany's
After returning to Australia, Ford attempted to break the 16-minute barrier in the 1500-metre freestyle, but was thwarted, firstly by a timing failure, then by New South Wales, who did not want her to make her second attempt in Queensland, and finally disqualification on her third attempt for incorrectly withdrawing from a previous race. Frustrated, she retired from swimming in 1981.
In 1981, Ford attended the University of Wollongong until taking up a scholarship at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where she completed a bachelor's degree in business communication and a master's degree in sports psychology.
Ford was one of 30 athletes to be invited by President Samaranch to the Olympic Congress in Baden Baden and became one of the inaugural members of the IOC Athletes Commission.
In 1982 Commonwealth Games she won the 200-metre butterfly for the second time and silver in the 800-metre freestyle.
Ford was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1982, and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honour Swimmer" in 1994.[3]
See also
- List of members of the International Swimming Hall of Fame
- List of Olympic medallists in swimming (women)
- World record progression 800 metres freestyle
References
- ^ "Ford, Michelle Jan". It's an Honour. Retrieved 8 January 2012.
- ^ "Sports Reference profile". Sports Reference. 2014. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
- ^ "Michelle Ford (AUS)". ISHOF.org. International Swimming Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 12 November 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
Bibliography
- Andrews, Malcolm (2000). Australia at the Olympic Games. Sydney, New South Wales: ISBN 0-7333-0884-8.
- Howell, Max (1986). Aussie Gold. Albion, Queensland: ISBN 0-86440-680-0.