International Swimming Hall of Fame Honorees By Last Name (H)

This swimmer joins a list of Australians who have won more Olympic gold medals in the fifteen-hundred meter freestyle than any other nation - starting with Andrew “Boy” Charlton in 1924. Following Charlton were Murray Rose-1956, Jon Konrads-1960, Robert Windle-1964 and Kieran Perkins in 1992 and 1996.

As a two year old, his dad carried him on to the pool deck of the Montreal Olympic swim stadium. Five years later, he was in Fort Lauderdale to see his dad’s induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

She was born in Thale, a small town in East Germany into a family that wasn’t interested in sports. However, at age seven under the East German sport system, she was discovered by talent scouts, learned to swim, started to compete and was soon sent to a centralized sports academy away from home to further develop her talent.

As a swimmer, he was the Scottish freestyle champion and record holder over several distances between 1942 and 1947 before deciding to concentrate on diving. Self-taught and self-coached, he won gold medals at the 1950, 1954 and 1958 Commonwealth Games on the 10-meter platform and represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games in 1948 in London and in 1952 in Helsinki.

During his lifetime (1937-1991), Bob Helmick became the most influential American in international sport. He led the governing bodies of the international aquatic disciplines (FINA), the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Growing up on the beautiful beaches of Queensland, Australia, Jodie Henry spent a lot of time at the beach with her two sisters, thanks to her parents love for the water. She learned to swim at the early age of three at the local Brisbane Swim School, but didn’t start competing until she was a teenager, which is quite late for a future Olympic Champion in this era.

At the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Penny Heyns made Olympic swimming history when she became the first woman to win both the 100 meter and 200 meter breaststroke events at the same Olympic Games. She is also the only woman to hold as many as 14 World Records in breaststroke events and to hold all three breaststroke World Records simultaneously: the 50, 100 and 200 meter long course.

He learned to swim in the irrigation ditches of Maui’s Pu’unene’s sugar plantation, where his parents worked as laborers. Watching over him and the other kids was Soichi Sakamoto, one of their elementary school teachers.

Tom Hoad was a Western Australia State Butterfly Champion from 1950 to 1954, but his love for the water was in water polo. For over 60 years, he helped keep Australia in the forefront of world water polo, first as a player, then as a coach.

A great promoter of youth sports and art, Bruce Hopping was born in 1921 in Vietnam. He grew up in Asia and the islands of the South Pacific, where his parents had business interests. When he was ready for high school, his family relocated to the United States, and then, like the rest of his graduating class in high school, he volunteered for the Army at the outbreak of World War II. He became a pilot and while searching for a missing plane, he was forced to ditch his plane into the Pacific. Battling storms, waves, sharks, sunburn and salt sores in a leaky raft, he survived on seagulls that roosted there and washed ashore in the Philippines two weeks later. It was a prime example of Hopping’s perseverance, tenacity and desire to live.