Mark Tewksbury
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Marcus Tewksbury | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | "Mark" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National team |
 Canada
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
February 7, 1968 Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 80 kg (180 lb) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Backstroke | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| College team | University of Calgary | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Medal record
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Marcus Tewksbury, MSM (born February 7, 1968) is a Canadian former competition swimmer. He is best known for winning the gold medal in the 100-metre backstroke at the 1992 Summer Olympics. He also hosted the first season of How It's Made, a Canadian documentary series, in 2001.
Tewksbury was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal (Civil Division) in 1993 for being a "motivational speaker and a gifted athlete."
Raised in Calgary, Alberta, Tewksbury trained at the University of Calgary.
He competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, and won a silver medal as a member of Canada's relay team. For some years he ranked as one of the top backstrokers in the world; never a strong below-the-water swimmer, he was unmatched on the surface, but, as the importance of below-the-water swimming increased, Tewksbury's ranking began to fall.
Going into Barcelona, Tewksbury was ranked fourth in the world and most pundits picked one of the powerful American swimmers to win gold. Tewksbury's gold medal was Canada's first at the Barcelona games and the first Canadian gold in swimming since the Communist-boycotted 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Tewksbury also won a bronze medal in the relay event in Barcelona. He made the cover of Time magazine. He was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, and the International Swimming Hall of Fame and was named Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year. After the Barcelona games, Tewksbury retired from swimming.
After retirement, Tewksbury received a number of high-profile endorsement deals and worked as an athlete representative with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a position from which he resigned in disenchantment in 1998, accusing the IOC of rampant corruption. He was also part of the group of former Olympic athletes that was pushing for the resignation of IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. Only months after the scandal surrounding the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic winter Games broke, Tewksbury became prominent around the world as a critic of the IOC and demanded reforms to the system.
...
Wikipedia