Professional Career
George Hodgson, Canada's only Olympic gold medal winner in swimming till 1984, did not stay in competition very long, but during the 3 years he swam, he never lost a race, including the two gold medals he won at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, with times of 5:24.4s in the 400 meter and 22:00.0s in the 1500 meter freestyle. He had already set a world record of 22:23.0 in the first round of the race. He was eighteen at the time and retired immediately after one of the great races of all time. His unprecedented success was widely attributed to his innovation of the trudgen stroke, a hybrid between the front crawl and sidestroke.
It was for the 1500 meter Olympic championship and Hodgson broke world and Olympic records for 1000 yards and meters, and 1 mile in addition to the prescribed 1500 meter race distance. His Olympic record at 400 meters stood until 1924 when Johnny Weissmuller broke it at Amsterdam. He was Canada's lone swimmer in 1912.
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