Early Career
Moorhouse was born in Bradford, attended Bradford Grammar School and went to 4th Shipley Scouts.
Moorhouse's inspiration to become seriously involved in national and international competitive swimming came at the age of 12 when he watched David Wilkie win gold at the Montreal Olympics before teaching himself to swim from a school library book. In 1980 he was selected for the England Junior team and broke the national junior records for both the 100 m and 200 m breaststroke. When he was 15, he was chosen for the national senior squad, number two to the gold medallist at the Moscow Olympics, Duncan Goodhew.
Moorhouse became Britain’s number one breaststroke swimmer in 1981 when he won a bronze medal for the 200 m in the European Championships in Yugoslavia. The following year he gained his first taste of gold after winning the 100 m breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games in Australia.
At the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, Moorhouse was tipped for a gold medal in the 100 m breaststroke but missed out completely, coming fourth. “I was devastated”, he says. “After the Games I convinced myself that I had no talent and that I was never going to win again. I didn’t want anything to do with swimming.”
He celebrated his comeback in April 1985 when he broke the World Short Course (25 m pool) record for the 100 m, and went on to win the European Championships gold medal in Bulgaria.
In 1986, Moorhouse suffered another setback, finishing first in the World Championships in Madrid but being disqualified for an illegal turn.
In 1987, putting the Madrid episode behind him, Moorhouse set a world short-course record by becoming the first person to swim 100 m breaststroke in less than a minute, out-swimming the former world record holder, Rolf Beab, at the Europeans in Bonn, in a time of 59.75 s.
Moorhouse started Olympic year, 1988, on the right note by winning the 100 m breaststroke at the US Indoor Championships to confirm his status as number one in the world. In September he achieved a lifetime’s ambition at Seoul when, following in the footsteps of David Wilkie and Duncan Goodhew, he won Olympic gold in the 100 m breaststroke.
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