At the ASCA World Clinic in Las Vegas, SwimSwam caught up with Gary Hall Sr. of the Race Club. Gary Hall discusses what he’s been working in his home of Coronado and how the Race Club has been developing a whole new way to measure and track swimming progress, one that Hall is quite excited about.
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I just don’t think many understand how special Gary Hall Sr. was in the water. While Mark Spitz cast a massive shadow from 1967 to 1972 over American swimming, Hall just broke the 400 IM world record on five different occasions. The mark that Hall first eclipsed was Greg Bellingham’s 4:45.1 at the 1968 Santa Clara Invite. His fifth and final 400 IM world record at the 1972 Olympic Trials lowered the mark to 4:30.81. That’s 14.29 seconds off the 400m IM world record in one Olympic cycle.
He made three Olympic teams while weaving through college and then medical school. As life complicated he transitioned from the 400 IM to win silver at the 1972 Olympics in the… Read more »
It was the golden age of swimming where records were set on a regular basis.
As good as Gary was, he got silver and bronze but not gold at the Olympics.
Oh absolutely, they just gave world records the way back then. My grandpa used to tell me about how you could go down to the corner store and buy three world records for a nickel.
I swam on a team with Hall back in 1972 and didn’t know him that much but the Disneyland Hotel story with Flipp Darr is fun. I learn about it as an adult. In fact I didn’t know that Sammy Lee coach Bob Webster to win diving as an adult either. Another team that Hall was on,
He lives in the same town as MA. I wonder if they work together on the DL?
Could be. Hall was even still informed about what happen to Garden Grove the city he grew up as a kid since his father still live there until 2009 when he died. So, Hall is not the most famous person in Garden Grove since actor Steve Martin live there as a kid and worked at Disneyland. Steve Martin I mean
I have been a big fan and follower of the Race Club for a decade now. His latest book is amazing too.