Donna de Varona
Donna de Varona in 1961
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Donna Elizabeth de Varona | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | "Liz" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National team | United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
April 26, 1947 San Diego |
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| Height | 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 134 lb (61 kg) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle, individual medley | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Santa Clara Swim Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Donna de Varona Pinto (born April 26, 1947), née Donna Elizabeth de Varona, is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, former world record-holder, and television sportscaster.
In 1960, at age 13, Donna qualified for her first U.S. Olympic swimming team. She already held the world record in the 400-meter individual medley, her signature event, but the event would not be added to the Olympic schedule until the 1964 Olympics. At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, Donna swam for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the women's 4×100 freestyle relay, but did not receive a medal because she did not swim in the event final. Four years later at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, after she was well on her way to setting a career total of eighteen world best times and world records, she won the gold medal in the women's 400-meter individual medley, besting her competition by a margin of six seconds and setting an Olympic record. She also earned a second gold medal as a member of the world-record-setting U.S. team in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
In 1964, after having graced the covers of Sports Illustrated, Look and Life magazines, the Associated Press and United Press International voted de Varona the "Most Outstanding Woman Athlete in the World." However, because women were offered few sports opportunities in American high schools or colleges in the early 1960s, de Varona retired from her sport and began her career in the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting.
At the age of 17, she appeared on ABC's Wide World of Sports, becoming the youngest and one of the first women sportscasters for a national network. Her groundbreaking career has earned her an Emmy, two Gracies and the opportunity to cover a wide variety of sports events including 17 winter and summer Olympic games. In 2006, she was inducted into the Museum of Television & Radio's first class of fifty "She Made It" pioneers in media.
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