Tuesday, January 21, 2020

ISHOF Seeks Nominations For the 2020 Paragon Awards

International Swimming Hall of Fame logoPentair Logo



ISHOF seeks nominations for the 2020 Paragon Awards presented by Pentair Aquatic Systems
The International Swimming Hall of Fame announces the call for nominations for the 2020 Paragon Awards to be presented at the International Swimming Hall of Fame’s Honors Weekend, April 24, 2020 in Fort Lauderdale.  Sponsored by Pentair Aquatic Systems, the awards are presented each year for outstanding contributions and leadership in several swimming and aquatic-related categories.
Candidates may be nominated for the Paragon Awards in the following categories:
  • Competitive Swimming
  • Competitive Diving
  • Competitive Synchronized Swimming
  • Competitive Water Polo
  • Aquatic Safety
  • Recreational Swimming
Kindly submit your nominees by January 31, 2020. Please include any relevant data to support your nomination, the aquatic category for nomination, as well as a brief biography of each individual and a high-resolution image.
Get more information about the event or see the 2019 award winners.
Nominations may be sent to:
Dr. Ivonne Schmid
International Swimming Hall of Fame
1 Hall of Fame Drive
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316
Phone: 954-462-6536 ext. 210
Fax: 954-525-4031
Email: ischmid@ishof.org
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

About the International Swimming Hall of Fame Induction Weekend:

The International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) Induction Ceremony is shaping up to be a star-studded weekend with multiple events spread out over two days in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Make your plans now to attend the weekend of April 24-25, 2020!  ISHOF Members can purchase the Complete Weekend Package (see below) and save! (Get info on membership here.) Can’t attend the event? Donate to ISHOF to support our honorees.
This year’s International Swimming Hall of Fame Honorees include:
HONOR SWIMMERS: Brendan Hansen (USA), Michael Klim (AUS), Jon Sieben (AUS), Rebecca Soni (USA), and Daichi Suzuki (JPN)
HONOR DIVER: Matthew Mitcham (AUS)
HONOR SYNCHRONIZED (ARTISTIC) SWIMMER: Elvira Khasyanova (RUS)
HONOR WATER POLO: Mirko Vicevic (YUG)
HONOR OPEN WATER SWIMMER: Marilyn Bell (CAN)
HONOR COACH: Ursula Carlile (AUS) and David Marsh (USA)
HONOR CONTRIBUTOR: Bob Duenkel*(USA) and Peter Hurzeler (SUI)
In addition to the Class of 2020, two Honorees from the Class of 2019, who were unable to attend last year, will be present to be inducted. Honor Swimmer: Otylia Jedrzejczak (POL) and Honor Diver: Li Ting (CHN).
Get more information about this year’s induction class here and more information about Otylia Jedrzejczak and Li Ting.
*deceased

The Induction Weekend Schedule

Friday, April 24, 2020
Paragon & ISHOF Awards Night
  • 5:30 PM Cocktails
  • 6:30 PM ISHOF and Paragon Awards
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Honoree Induction Day Luncheon
  • 12-1:30 PM Luncheon
Official 56th Annual International Swimming Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
  • 6:00 PM VIP Reception
  • 7:00 –10:00 PM Induction Ceremony

Ticket Information


HOTEL INFORMATION

Upscale retreat with private beach access, two pools, four restaurants, full service spa and oceanside bar. Location of the Saturday evening induction ceremony. ¼ mile south of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
3030 Holiday Drive, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316 (954) 525-4000
Special ISHOF Guest Rate of $279 per night
NOTE: RESORT FEE IS INCLUDED in the $279 rate

Courtyard by Marriott Fort Lauderdale Beach
440 Seabreeze Blvd., Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316 (954) 524-8733
Special ISHOF Guest Rate of $229 per night
Questions: contact Meg Keller-Marvin at meg@ishof.org or 570-594-4367

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Lewis Pugh Swims The Meltwater He Wants To Refreeze

Swimming World soaks up snippets from the realm of water sports around the world in a one-stop digest updated each day of every passing week.
If you have a snippet of news for us, let us know: editorial@swimmingworld.com

The Week of January 20-26, 2020

Tuesday, January 21
On the eve of a “swim where no human has swum before: 1km across a supra-glacial lake in East Antarctica” to highlight the approach to a cliff edge on climate-change, Lewis Pugh, the United Nations Patron of Oceans, has released magnificent images of him swimming in meltwater in an ice-tunnel under the Antarctic ice sheet.
The images – by Kelvin Trautman, a photographer & filmmaker who also described himself as “Outdoorsman & Athlete” – are spectacular, and mark the start of Pugh’s Antartica2020 mission, set back in 2016. Tomorrow brings on the East Antarctica leg of the campaign: the 1km across a supra-glacial lake with Slava Fetisov, as reported by Swimming World last month when Pugh ran an advert seeking polar swimmers to join him.
In a series of tweets, Pugh highlights the beauty and majesty of Antartica – and what the world is losing as the ice melts away at a rate never before measured in the lifetimes of those measuring. The swim by Pugh and Fetisov coincides with speeches from Greta Thunberg and Donald Trump at the Davos World Economic Forum.
Pugh writes:
“I can hardly believe what I have just experienced, swimming in a river UNDER the Antarctic ice sheet. Every shade of blue imaginable – it was utterly magnificent, and absolutely terrifying. Antarctica is melting. #Antarctica2020
East Antarctica is vast and beautiful, but everywhere we look there is meltwater. I will be swimming across one of these supra-glacial lakes to demonstrate the rapid changes taking place here, and to call for urgent action on climate change. #Antarctica2020
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Back in Time: Answer Man Learns to swim with Florence Skadding, the 1920s ‘Washington Mermaid’



Florence Skadding, left, and H.J. McMillan in 1925 at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md. (Library of Congress)

by John Kelly (Answer Man)
Washington Post Columnist
June 17, 2017

 As comfortable as Florence Skadding was in the water — the “Washington Mermaid,” some called her — she must have felt a bit uneasy as she floundered briefly in the Atlantic City inlet channel on Sept. 5, 1923.

The 21-year-old Florence was participating in a 440-yard ocean-swimming race, but had been blinded by waves and backwash churned up by several passing motorboats.

The headline in the next day’s Washington Post story — “Florence Skadding Near Death in Swim” — was perhaps a tad melodramatic, but things had definitely been touch and go for a while. “Several police boats and a coast guard cutter signaled from the shore went to her assistance,” The Post reported, “but the Washington girl, recovering her sight after a few seconds, refused to be taken aboard any of the vessels and swam to shore.”

Florence came in sixth out of eight swimmers. Florence was not used to coming in sixth.

Answer Man has been perusing old stories about swimming in Washington. He kept encountering a short-and-stocky natator named Florence Skadding. She competed in diving competitions around town. She performed swimming exhibitions. She taught lifesaving. She coached swim teams.

“Washington Mermaid,” indeed. If it was wet, Florence wanted to be in it or on it. (She also enjoyed canoeing.)

Florence never competed in the Olympics — she tried out for the 1924 Games but failed to earn a spot — but she served as Washington’s unofficial “first lady of swimming.”

She shot to prominence in 1920 at the Tidal Basin, which once sported a whites-only beach, roughly where the Jefferson Memorial is now. While other competitors in the weekly women’s races employed the demure side stroke — thought to be more appropriate for the fairer sex — Florence dared to swim the crawl.

“She was a woman and women didn’t do these things back in those days,” said Florence’s older daughter, Peggy Dwyer of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “It was like a no-no, but she did it anyway.”

Florence was in the first organized unit of the American Red Cross Women’s Life Saving Corps, established in 1920. She won lifesaving competitions that included not just swimming but also such events as the “head carry” and the “cross shoulder carry.”

When The Post wanted to illustrate a story in 1925 on proper swimming technique, it photographed Florence doing the breaststroke, writing: “Look closely at the surface of the water and see if you cannot make out the frog position of her legs.”

She also took part in “aquaplaning,” a competition that saw swimmers pulled behind speedboats as they stood on what resembled Boogie Boards.

In 1932, Florence married Lyman E. Morris, an officer in the Army Air Corps and a Riggs Bank executive, or, as The Post put it, she “quit swimming pools to embark on the sea of matrimony as Mrs. Morris.”

“That didn’t last very long,” snorted Peggy when Answer Man read that line to her. Peggy said her mother didn’t really slow down: “She used to teach adult swimming classes at the Shoreham Hotel. I was 4 years old. She would take me along because I could swim. I would just fool around in the shallow end while she taught adult women.”

Florence also took kids from her Barnaby Woods neighborhood to the city pool in Takoma and taught them to swim.

In 1960, as she prepared to move with Lyman to West Palm Beach, Fla., Florence reflected on the ways her favorite pastime had changed. There were heated pools now, she told The Post, and lane markers. But the main change was in who was swimming.

“It used to be that only young people went swimming,” Florence said. “But I’ve taught many women in their 60s and 70s to swim and they enjoy it very much.”

Florence’s grandson Kurt Wienants, himself a swimmer, said that well into her 80s Florence would attend diving competitions and sit on the pool deck, close to the water she loved so much.

“She was barely able to walk, but she was always there,” he said.

Florence Skadding Morris died, at 87, in 1989.

**Florence Skadding Morris' daughter, Peggy, who is mentioned in the article,  swam regularly at the Hall of Fame pool for dozens and dozens of years.  And her grandson, Kurt Weinants, also mentioned, swam for the Fort Lauderdale Swim Team, the University of Miami and Jack Nelson for many years.  Kurt now has a son himself, who is also a swimmer.  I think Florence would be very proud the family is keeping her love of swimming alive.


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Tuesday, January 14, 2020

MEXICAN OLYMPIC DIVER AND ISHOF HONOREE CARLOS GIRON PASSES AWAY AT THE AGE OF 65





ISHOF Honor Diver and Mexican Olympian, Carlos Giron, has passed away after a long battle with a lung infection at age 65.

Giron entered the hospital just before Christmas due to pneumonia, and during his stay, acquired a bacterial infection that complicated his infection further. He died today, Monday, January 13, 2020.

Carlos was a five-time Olympian, competing in the 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games. He won silver on the 3-meter springboard at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. He also placed 4th on the platform.

Longevity and consistency were the hallmarks of Giron’s career. People described his diving as “simply beautiful”.

While the 3-meter springboard was his main event, his diving talent was almost equally matched on the 10-meter platform as well.



Travelling to Fort Lauderdale to attend the International Diving Meet was always a favorite of Giron’s. He looked forward to the meet held every May and his visits to the ISHOF museum. He started coming in 1976, when it was then called the CAN-AM-MEX meet and continued attending through the mid-1980’s, when it became the International Diving Meet. During his years in Fort Lauderdale, Giron won a combined seven gold, three silver and one bronze medal, on the springboard and platform.

Giron competed in an era of outstanding Hall of Fame divers, including Greg Louganis (USA), Klaus DiBiasi (ITA), Phil Boggs (USA), Falk Hoffman (GDR), Vladimir Vasin (USR) and Giorgio Cagnotto (ITA). After the 1980 Olympics, Giron was selected as World Male Springboard Diver of the Year for 1981.
He is a gold, silver and two-time bronze medalist at the Pan-American Games (1975 and 1979) and a champion at numerous Central American and Caribbean meets.


After retiring from diving, Giron attended medical school at UCLA, where he received a degree in dental prosthesis. He also attended sports administration courses at the University of Texas in Austin; Sport Schule Institute in Berlin, Germany; and the University LaSalle in Mexico City.

In addition, Giron was also involved in government and later became Mexico City’s Area Director for Consumer Organization, Agricultural and General Services, Head of Transportation and Mexican Social Security. He was President of the Mexican Association of Olympic Medalists and continued in the sport, as a coach and Masters Diver.

Today, Carlo Girón, son of the former medalist, announced the sad news through his social networks, and thanked everyone for their good wishes for his father that have come to the family. He continued…..

“It is with great sorrow, we want to communicate to each and every one of you who were an important part in the life of my dad @DrCGiron, that today he has stopped being among us to move to immortality. Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes,” he wrote.

While the Mexican Olympic Committee (COM) adding supportive sentiments: “The Mexican Olympic family deeply regrets the loss of one of its distinguished members, the 1980 Moscow medalist Carlos Girón.”

In turn, the Secretary of Public Education, Esteban Moctezuma Barragán shared: "We say goodbye to a glory of Mexican sport, Carlos Girón, silver medalist at the Moscow 1980 Olympic Games. My deepest condolences to his family.”

Carlos Giron was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2001.
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