Competitive Swimming
Raised in Calgary, Alberta, Tewksbury trained at the University of Calgary.
He competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul and won a silver medal as part of Canada's relay team. For some years he ranked as one of the top backstrokers in the world; never a strong below-the-water swimmer, he was unmatched on the surface, but, as the importance of below-the-water swimming increased, Tewksbury's ranking began to fall.
Going into Barcelona, Tewksbury was ranked fourth in the world and most pundits picked one of the powerful American swimmers to win gold. Tewksbury's gold medal was Canada's first at the Barcelona games and the first Canadian gold in swimming since the Communist-boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Tewksbury also won a bronze medal in the relay event in Barcelona. He made the cover of Time magazine. He was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, and the International Swimming Hall of Fame and was named Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year. After the Barcelona games, Tewksbury retired from swimming.
Read more about this topic: Mark Tewksbury
Famous quotes containing the words competitive and/or swimming:
“Developing the muscles of the soul demands no competitive spirit, no killer instinct, although it may erect pain barriers that the spiritual athlete must crash through.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“Loosed betwixt eye and lid, the swimming beams
Of memory, blind school of cuttlefish,
Rise to the air, plunge to the cold streams....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)