DID YOU KNOW?THE OLDEST SWIMMER IN OLYMPIC 2016
American Ervin won
joint gold in the same event in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when he was 19
years old but quit the sport aged just 23.
He returned to the
Olympics in 2012, finishing fifth in the 50m freestyle.
France's Florent
Manadou won silver, Ervin's compatriot Nathan Adrian came third and Britain's
Ben Proud fourth.
Meanwhile, Britain's
Fran Halsall has qualified for the final of the women's 50m freestyle after
winning her semi-final despite her bus getting lost and taking her to the
athletics stadium.
Ervin said of his
victory: "I kind of laughed. It's almost absurd I was able to do it again.
"This medal means
to me, the recognition, the immense gratitude for all the people that have
supported me through the highs and the lows, always there for me, let me lean
on them and I hope they can always lean on me if they need it."
Born in
Hollywood in 1981 and an Olympic gold medallist before the age of 20, he had
given up swimming at the age 23.
He then spent time living
in New York, teaching and playing in a rock band, and sold his 2000 gold medal
on Ebay to raise money for victims of the 2004 tsunami.
Ervin also suffered
from depression and at one point tried to kill himself by overdosing on
tranquilisers.
After returning to
competition in 2011 he qualified for the USA's Olympic team for the 2012 Games
and came fifth.
He was part of the team
that won gold in Monday's 100m freestyle relay and now, 16 years on from
Sydney, is an outright Olympic champion for the first time in his career.
·
Ervin suggested in an
interview earlier this year that if he was successful at the Rio Olympics he
would consider attempting to qualify for the Tokyo Games in four years time,
when he will be 39.
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Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national
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One
of the leaders on the American national team, Anthony Ervin’s
two part career has seen him participate in two Olympics 12 years apart, tie
for an individual gold medal with training partner Gary Hall Jr., and more
recently, placing 5th at the London Games in the 50m
freestyle.
1. He no longer has either of his medals from the Sydney
Games. He
donated his gold medal for the 50m freestyle to the Red Cross Tsunami relief
fund, selling it over eBay and raising just over $17,000 to a swim fan in the
Philippines. The silver medal from the 4x100m freestyle was also lost during
his travels.
(Editor Note: We have heard from Anthony’s mom. She
explained, ” I have his silver medal here at home; it was never lost, have
always had it (along with hundreds of school and club medals, etc.”)
2. He led off the silver medal winning 4x100m free relay in
Sydney, a race the Americans would not win for the first time in Olympic
history. Ervin’s
lead off leg of 48.89 was fast, but not as fast as Michael Klim in the lane
next to him, who would break the world record in the 100m distance swimming a
blistering 48.12. The American men would lose this race for the first time in
Olympic history. The Australian victory was particularly sweet, not only was it
done on home turf, but after the race they played some air guitar, a reference
to a comment that Hall Jr. had made about how the US was going to “smash the
Aussies like guitars.”
3. His favorite concert to date is seeing Jack White
perform. The
guitar-playing Ervin is no stranger to music, having played in a band and also
offering to write supporters a custom song during his crowd-sourcing drive in
2012. He watched White play in Berkeley at the Greek, and was impressed by the
intensity the rock and roller displayed in commanding a wide variety of musical
instruments. During his time off, Ervin graduated from the angry hip hop of his
youth to rock & roll– “it was angst-ridden punk or country blues or
romance-and-ballads-type stuff.” (For a better look at what Ervin listens to,
here is his
playlist on Rhapsody.)
4. Ervin was put into swimming because he was a brat. A self-described “trouble maker, disobedient, (with)
no discipline,” Ervin was placed into the sport of swimming as a child with the
hopes that he would channel his energy and aggression into something
productive.
5. He broke Matt Biondi’s American
record in the 100m freestyle. In the year following Sydney, Ervin had arguably his best
international showing of his career, winning the 50m and 100m freestyle at the
2001 FINA World Championships in Fukuoka. In the 100, an event he’d placed 5th in at US Trials the year before, he
would beat Pieter
van den Hoogenband and Ian Thorpe to improve on Biondi’s mark in 48.33. At those World Champs
Ervin would be one of the few bright spots for the American men, with the
Australian men riding the momentum of a solid Sydney performance to sweep all
of the relays.
6. He has Tourettes. As a teenager, just before he was to start high school,
Ervin was diagnosed with Tourettes. He would be prescribed tranquilizers, which
still didn’t slow down Ervin from becoming one of the top ranked high school
swimmers in the country.
7. He’s got some DJ’ing skills. Ben Lovett, the keyboard player for
the multi-platinum selling band Mumford & Sons, started Communion
Presents, a
regular club night in London prior to hitting worldwide popularity with
Mumford. With the band on break, Lovett brought the club night state-side for a
9-city tour in October of 2013. The first stop, in New York City at Rockwood
Music Hall, included one certain Olympic swimmer filling a guest DJ slot.
During his set Ervin played tracks by Empire of the Sun, Arcade Fire,
and The Strokes.
8. He split back-to-back 47’s last summer at 2013 Worlds. Although the Americans would come up
just short in winning gold in the 4×100 freestyle relay, Ervin swam absolutely
out of his mind in his two relay swims. In the morning he was the fastest of
the American men, swimming a 47.3 to secure himself a place in the final. That
night, swimming the third leg – which would be blazing fast with Vlad Morozov
(47.40), France’s Fabien Gilot (46.9) and Italy’s Marco Orsi (47.25) also in
the pool– Ervin would again swim well below his best time of 48.33 by posting a
47.44. To give you some perspective on just what kind of speed he has, his
split for the first 50m in the final was a 21.76
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