Catherine Mai-Lan Fox (born December 15, 1977) is an American swimmer who won two gold medals at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
She is of Vietnamese and European ethnicity. Her father, Thomas C. Fox (editor and former publisher of the National Catholic Reporter), worked in Vietnam for International Voluntary Services from 1966 to 1968, where he met Catherine's mother, To Kim Hoa, a social worker in Can Tho who married Mr. Fox and moved to the United States in 1972.
Fox grew up in Roeland Park, Kansas, attended high school at Bishop Miege and graduated from Stanford University, majoring in human biology and studio art.
Fox competed at the 1995 Pan American Games and was a member of the gold medal-winning 4x200 freestyle relay team. She made the U.S. Olympic team for the Atlanta Games as a freestyle swimmer, and was a member of two gold-winning relay teams: the 400-meter freestyle (where she swam in the final) and the 400-meter medley (where she swam freestyle in a preliminary heat). Fox won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay, and bronze medals in the 100-meter freestyle and 100-meter backstroke, at the 1997 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.
At Stanford, Fox was a 21-time All-American in swimming, a 9-time NCAA champion, and set an American record in the 100-yard backstroke in 1999 with a time of 52.47 seconds.
In 2006, she was named to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.
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