Lance Larson
Larson during the 1960 Olympics.
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| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Lance Melvin Larson | |||||||||||||||
| National team |
 United States
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| Born |
July 3, 1940 Monterey Park, California |
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| Height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) | |||||||||||||||
| Weight | 174 lb (79 kg) | |||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Butterfly, freestyle, individual medley | |||||||||||||||
| Club | Los Angeles Athletic Club | |||||||||||||||
| College team | University of Southern California | |||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Lance Melvin Larson (born July 3, 1940) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in four events.
Larson was born in Monterey Park, California, and attended El Monte High School. He set CIFSS records in 1957 and 1958 in the 100-yards butterfly of 55.5 and 54.6 seconds, and another CIFSS record in 1958 in the 100-yard freestyle of 50.9 seconds. He was the first high school swimmer to break the 50-second barrier in the 100-yard freestyle. Larson was the first man in the world to swim the 100-meter butterfly in under sixty seconds. He enrolled in the University of Southern California, where he swam for the USC Trojans swimming and diving team in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competition. He was an "all-around" swimmer in the four-stroke individual medley, the butterfly, and the sprint freestyle, and he won Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national championships in all three.
He competed at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, where he received a gold medal for swimming the butterfly leg of the men's 4×100-meter medley relay for the winning U.S. team. The U.S. relay team of Frank McKinney (backstroke), Paul Hait (breaststroke), Larson (butterfly), and Jeff Farrell (freestyle) set a new world record of 4:05.4 in the event final.
Individually, Larson also received a silver medal in the men's 100-meter freestyle at the 1960 Olympics, and featured as a participant in one of the most controversial Olympic swimming finishes ever. John Devitt of Australia was listed as the winner of the men's 100-meter freestyle race. Results were decided by finish judges who relied on their eyes and did not use replays. Three judges were assigned to each finishing position. There were three official timers in 1960 for each lane and swimmer, all timing by hand. All three timers for Devitt, in lane three, timed him in 55.2 seconds. The three timers for lane four timed Lance Larson in 55.0, 55.1, and 55.1 seconds.
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