The athlete who should have been the most decorated American female swimmer from the 1976 Olympic Games will be honored with the Ousley Award at the American Swim Coaches Association’s Annual Awards Banquet on Thursday, Sept. 8. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Shirley Babashoff was poised to win the coveted 200, 400 and 800 Freestyles and duplicate Debbie Meyer‘s feat of 1968. Instead, Babashoff was vilified as “Surly Shirley” for speaking out about the doped East German women’s swimming team in Montreal. The only American athlete in any sport to “tell it as it really is” in Montreal, also anchored the iconic 1976 400 Freestyle relay that vanquished the doped East German team to end the Games. The relay was widely considered to be the most inspired and inspirational event in modern swimming history. Listen to Jack Nelson, 1976 USA Women’s Head Coach talk about the Relay.
Now, thanks to The Last Gold documentary produced by USA Swimming, the world is learning the truth, once again, about the devastating consequences and the effect performance enhancing drugs can have on sport and the lives of people. Considered one of the greatest untold stories in Olympic Swimming history, The Last Gold, a feature-length documentary, will be shown at the ASCA Clinic on Friday, Sept 9th.
It was reported in January of 2007, that one hundred and sixty-seven former East German (DDR) athletes would be financially compensated through Germany’s Olympic Committee for the systematic doping of DDR athletes from 1973 through 1989. When told of this fact back then, Shirley Babashoff‘s first comment was, “Only 167 Athletes!”
An appeal was made to FINA and the IOC at the time to rewrite the record books, strip the East Germans of their medals and award new medals to the rightful winners. Now, almost 10 years later (plus 30 additional years), nothing has been done.
Forty years have now transpired. History will be forever stained until the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognizes the injustice. Until the IOC comes clean with its doping history, the sport will continue to see history repeat itself as seen recently with the discovery of the systematic doping of Russian athletes.
Based on a mix of positive tests, personal admissions, as well as doping admissions from their coaches, Swimming World Magazine stripped Kornelia Ender, Ulrike Tauber, Petra Schneider, Ute Geweniger and Kristin Otto of their World Swimmer of the Year awards from the 1970s and ’80s. Those five swimmers-–along with Barbara Krause, Cornelia Sirch, Silke Horner and Anke Mohring–-have had their European Swimmer of the Year awards vacated as well.
Shirley Babashoff will be introduced at the Banquet by Coach Mark Schubert, her coach from 1976 and the most successful team swimming coach in the history of the sport. Shirley was a key piece of Coach Schubert’s historic teams at Mission Viejo, California.
Swimming World has been a leading voice over the years in bringing attention to the wrongs of 1976. In 2006, Brent Rutemiller, Publisher of Swimming World, was given a media award by the American Swim Coaches Association where he spoke about the need to recognized Babashoff and the 1976 team.
SwimmingWorld.TV also produced a number of show talking about the injustice
American Swim Coaches Association contributed to this article