Michelle Ford
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| Full name | Michelle Jan Ford | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National team | Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
15 July 1962 Sydney, New South Wales |
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| Height | 1.59 m (5 ft 3 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 54 kg (119 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle, butterfly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Michelle Jan Ford, MBE (born 15 July 1962) is an Australian former long-distance freestyle and butterfly swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won a gold medal in the 800-metre freestyle, bronze in the 200-meter butterfly, and 4th in the 400-meters freestyle at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She was the only non-Soviet bloc female swimmer to win an individual gold medal at the 1980 games. She also set two world records in her career, and was the first Australian woman to win individual Olympic medals in two distinct specialized strokes.
Ford, the second of four children grew up in the seaside Sydney suburb of Sans Souci, familiar with water, as her father Ian, a dentist, had narrowly missed Olympic selection as a yachtsman. After learning to swim at the age of 6, she made national headlines when she swam the 100 yard freestyle in 61.5 seconds, at the age of 12, the fastest time ever set by a swimmer at such an age.
In January 1976, at the New South Wales Age Championships, at the North Sydney pool, she broke six state and three national records at the age of 13, two of which had previously been held by triple Olympic gold medalist Shane Gould. She proceeded to compete at the Australian Championships, where she won the 200-meter butterfly, despite standing only 140 centimeters, setting another national and Commonwealth record in the process. Another strong performance in the 200-meter freestyle lead to selection for both events for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. After a seven-week national training camp, she competed in her first Olympic race in the 200-meter freestyle, where her competition included the eventual champion, Kornelia Ender of East Germany.
After the Olympics, Ford scaled her training back in order to catch up on her studies at St George Girls High School. On the advice of her coach Dick Caine, she began to concentrate on distance freestyle swimming, and in 1977 set an Australian record in the 400-meter freestyle at the New South Wales Age Championships, before setting another national record at the Australian Championships in the 800-meter freestyle, as well as winning the 200-meter freestyle. The following year in 1978, at the KB international meet in Brisbane, she broke the 800-meter freestyle record of East Germany's Petra Thumer by 0.18 of a second, setting a new time of 8:35.04, lowering her own national record by 10 seconds. She also set another Australian and Commonwealth record in the 200-meter butterfly. A fortnight later, Ford lowered her record to 8:31.30.
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