Pre-coverage of the World Championships is sponsored by Wylas Timing. Each week until the start of the swimming competition at the world championships, Swimming World will look back at a previous performance at the world championships that still carries significance.
By Jeff Commings, Swimming World Senior Writer
Cynthia Woodhead, better known as “Sippy,” is legendary in sports history. She’s the one who set a national 13-14 age group record in the 200 long course freestyle that hundreds of girls dream of breaking every year.
That time of 1:58.53 is approaching its 37th year in existence as the national age group record. Woodhead posted the swim in her international racing debut at the 1978 world championships at the tender age of 14, winning the gold medal over the older and stronger East Germans. Of course, we now know that East German coaches and scientists were doping its female athletes in the era of the Iron Curtain, which makes Woodhead’s gold medal all the more impressive.
Just one month earlier at the U.S. nationals, Woodhead became the first American under two minutes in the 200 free, qualifying for world championships with a 1:59.49. That was just .45 slower than East German Barbara Krause’s world record, and set expectations high for Woodhead’s senior-level international debut.
“We’ll go even faster in Berlin,” Woodhead said after her American record. She would need to go faster if she were to stop the East German train in its tracks – and do it in Germany.
Photo Courtesy: Wylas Timing
The American women’s team going to the world championships was one of the best assembled in many years. It was essentially a new generation that was building on the legendary 1976 Olympic team that included Shirley Babashoff and Jill Sterkel, and such talents as Kim Linehan and Tracy Caulkins were also making their international debuts.
Erasing the sting of getting nearly skunked by the East Germans at the 1976 Olympics, the American women won nine of the 14 events, setting world records in six of them. Caulkins’ two world marks in the 200 IM and 400 IM landed her on the cover of the October 1978 issue of Swimming World Magazine and earned Caulkins her first Swimming World Female World Swimmer of the Year honor. But in terms of standing the test of time, Woodhead’s 200 free has outlasted all of the phenomenal efforts put forth in Berlin.
As mentioned before, Woodhead was only 14 years old. Her chief rivals in the 200 free were about five years older and had been through the experience of an Olympics and/or world championships. The final started out with a thrilling tie at 100 meters between Woodhead and Krause, both timed at 58.57. Woodhead, borrowing from her distance background, then took command in the third 50 meters with a 29.99 split to Krause’s 31.03. That put Woodhead in the lead by a body length, and she cruised to the win with a world record 1:58.59. It was the first swim under 1:59, and according to the report in Swimming World Magazine, Woodhead was the first swimmer in history to go under 1:00 in the second 100 meters with a 59.97.
“I’m not ashamed of the time I swam,” Krause said after the race. “What can I say? The faster person won.”
Woodhead also won gold medals in the 400 free relay and 400 medley relay. She collected two silver medals in the 400 and 800 freestyles behind record-breaking swims by Australia’s Tracey Wickham. They would be her only world championship medals.
Though Woodhead’s gold medal-winning time has become a goal of 13- and 14-year-old girls in the United States, it was her swim at the FINA World Cup in Tokyo on September 3, 1979, that would really turn American swimming on its ear. Her 1:58.23 not only lowered her world record for the second time, but would stand until Kristin Otto came along in 1984 and swam a 1:57.75. For her efforts in 1979, Woodhead would receive the Swimming World Magazine Female World Swimmer of the Year award.
The time would stand as the American record for much longer, keeping Woodhead in the American swimming consciousness for generations. Her 1:58.23 was finally broken by Nicole Haislett at the 1992 Olympics on the way to her gold medal.
Woodhead was denied a chance to clean up at the 1980 Olympics by the U.S.-led boycott, but stayed in the sport for the 1984 Olympics, where she won a silver medal in the 200 freestyle. It was the capper to a career that broke barriers and inspired generations.
Previous world championships retrospectives:
The first 50 freestyle at the world championships
Petra Schneider sets 400 IM world record in 1982
Ryan Lochte-Michael Phelps 200 IM from 2011
Le Jingyi and the Chinese women at the 1994 world championships
Wow!