Mark Spitz
Mark Spitz
Mark Andrew Spitzis an American former competition swimmer, nine-time Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in seven events. He won seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, an achievement surpassed only by Michael Phelps, who won eight golds at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Spitz set new world records in all seven events in which he competed in 1972, an achievement that still stands. Since the year 1900, no other swimmer has gained so great a...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSwimmer
Date of Birth10 February 1950
CityModesto, CA
CountryUnited States of America
So in my mind I own a lot of house records still
I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That's almost demeaning to me. It is not almost - it is.
The pool is terrible, but that doesn't have much to do with my record swims. That's all mental attitude.
Life is true to form, records are meant to be broken
If you fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail.
When I went to the Olympics, I had every intention of shaving the mustache off, but I realized I was getting so many comments about it - and everybody was talking about it - that I decided to keep it.
The memories of the Munich games for me are of triumph and tragedy.
All things being equal, if we could simulate the same scenario, he has a lot more difficult task. He's elected to swim six individual events, as opposed to what I elected to do, which was four.
Their destiny and where they want to be in life is not going to be a matter of chance ... it's really the choices they make, and they have to be committed to those choices.
Did I take it all in on the awards stand? The only time I would have done that was my last event, because I was always thinking about the next one.
This is a way to get the museum back on its feet.
It really changed how we do things in sports. Certainly, nothing happened to preplan or expect what was going to happen that day, as opposed to today, when extreme logistics go into planning.
The officials I was with, I don't know if they were unaware, but they didn't say anything to me. The whole thing turned into what did I see and what did I know.
New generation, I guess. The important thing is that we're getting the museum back on its feet.