John Marshall (swimmer)
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Marshall holding 1950 AAU title badges
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| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | John Birnie Marshall | |||||||||||||||
| National team |
 Australia
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| Born |
29 March 1930 Bondi, New South Wales |
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| Died | 31 January 1957 (aged 26) Melbourne, Victoria |
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| Sport | ||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle, butterfly | |||||||||||||||
| College team | Yale University | |||||||||||||||
| Coach | Bob Kiphuth | |||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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John Birnie Marshall (29 March 1930 – 31 January 1957) was an Australian competitive swimmer of the 1940s and 1950s who won a silver medal in the 1500-metre and a bronze medal in the 400-metre freestyle at the 1948 Summer Olympics. By the age of 21, he had set 28 world and 38 American records.
Marshall was born in Bondi, New South Wales, the elder son of Alexander St Andrew McLean Marshall, a window dresser and former surfing champion from Western Australia. He soon moved to Perth, where he started swimming in the Swan River by the age of three, and in 1935 to Melbourne. As a teenager he took up cricket, association football and athletics and only later shifted to swimming.
In 1947 he won every event from the 220-yard to the 1650-yard freestyle at the 1947 Australian championships. The following year, he was selected for the London Olympics, where he claimed bronze in the men's 400-metre freestyle behind the American duo of Bill Smith and Jimmy McLane. He claimed a silver medal in the men's 1500-metre freestyle, behind McLane. In Marshall's era, the 200-metre freestyle was not part of the Olympic swimming program. McLane's coach, Bob Kiphuth was so impressed by Marshall's performance that the same year he arranged for Marshall to study at Yale University and swim for the Yale Bulldogs swimming and diving team. Under Kiphuth's guidance, Marshall set 19 world records, 15 of them within four months in 1950. At the 1949 Australian championships he won all freestyle events from 100- to 1500-metre, and at the 1950 U.S. Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Indoor Championships he collected the 220-yard, 440-yard, 880-yard, 200-metre, 400-metre and 1-mile titles.
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