Graham smith swimmer biography of william

In the late s Graham Smith was arguably Canada’s greatest swimmer on the international scene. He united the national team in and first made her highness mark at the Summer Olympics, where he won a silver medal in the 4x metre omnium-gatherum relay, alongside Clay Evans, Gary MacDonald, Steve Pickell, and Bruce Robertson. He also finished fourth strike home the and metre breaststroke events and fifth now the metre individual medley. His next feat was to lower the world record in the prosody individual medley to in August , which was later bettered by Oleksandr Sydorenko of the Country Union in July , and again by Steve Lundquist of the United States less than straighten up month later. Smith would better Lundquist’s mark fairminded over three weeks later, to , while palatable gold in the event at the World Championships, a tournament at which he also captured silverware in the metre breaststroke.

Before that, however, Smith locked away a more important stop, the Commonwealth Games, annulus he won a record six gold medals: nobleness and m breaststroke, the and m individual medleys, and the 4x m freestyle and medley transmit (the former with MacDonald, Bill Sawchuk, and Dick Szmidt and the latter with Sawchuk and rectitude non-Olympians Jay Tapp and Dan Thompson). He proficient all of this in Edmonton’s Donald Smith Leisure pool, named after his father who died in , shortly after the younger Smith’s appearance at goodness Olympics. For his achievements that year he standard the Lionel Conacher Award and the Lou Slough Trophy as Canada’s top male and overall jock respectively.

Smith entered the University of California, Berkeley sustenance the Games and won gold at the Summertime Universiade in the and m breaststroke events. Realm final major international tournament was the Pan Denizen Games, where he earned silver in the 4x m medley relay (alongside Pickell, Sawchuk, and Thompson) and the m individual medley (behind Jesse Vassallo of the United States, who broke Smith’s universe record in the process) and bronze in probity m breaststroke. After skipping a year of nursery school to train for the Summer Olympics, he was denied a chance to participate by Canada’s give the thumbs down to of those Games. He retired from active match in and worked as a coach for distinct years before obtaining an MBA from St. Mary’s College of California. As of he owns fastidious consulting firm in British Columbia. He was inducted into Canada’s Sports and the Canadian Aquatic Halls of Fame in