Mark Kerry
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Mark Anthony Kerry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | "Aunty" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National team |
 Australia
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| Born |
4 August 1959 Temora, New South Wales |
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| Height | 1.87 m (6 ft 2 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 85 kg (187 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Backstroke, freestyle | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| College team |
Indiana University University of Southern California |
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Medal record
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Mark Anthony Kerry (born 4 August 1959) is an Australian former backstroke and freestyle swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won three Olympic medals, including a gold in the 4 × 100 m medley relay at the 1980 Summer Olympics as the backstroker for the Quietly Confident Quartet. During his career, he won twelve Australian Championships.
Initially trained by his mother, Kerry enjoyed success in swimming and surf lifesaving as a teenager. His swimming career progressed to senior Australian standards after he switched to the tutelage of John Rigby and moved to Queensland. He made his debut at the 1976 Australian Championships and promptly won the 200 m freestyle and backstroke events to win selection for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal at the age of 16. At the Olympics, Kerry reached the final in two events, coming seventh and fifth in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke respectively. Kerry was disappointed with his performances, but they attracted the attention of American coach Doc Counsilman, who invited Kerry to swim under him at the Indiana University. Kerry set Australian records while in the United States, but his international career hit trouble when he was expelled from the 1978 Commonwealth Games team for breaking a curfew.
Kerry returned to Australia in 1980 for the national championships and gained selection for the Moscow Olympics by winning the backstroke double. Kerry declined financial inducements and resisted political pressure from the government of Australia to boycott the Olympics in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He went on to win bronze in the 200 m backstroke after missing the final in the 100 m. The peak of his career came in the 4 × 100 m medley relay, where he led off the winning team. The race remains the only time that the United States did not win the event at the Olympics. After the games, Kerry took an extended break from the sport, before returning for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He claimed a bronze in the medley relay and came fifth in the 100 m backstroke. He then retired and took up a television and modelling career in the United States. After returning to Australia, he ran and owned Dunhill Management, one of the largest recruiting firms in the nation, with his brother. In 2001, the Kerry brothers sold Dunhill for A$22.7 million, with up to A$13.8 million in additional payments depending on the success of the company. They later founded a new recruitment firm, K2.
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