Claudia Poll

Claudia Maria Poll Ahrens is a Costa Rican Nicaraguan swimmer, born December 21, 1972, in Managua, Nicaragua, who specialized in freestyle events from 200 to 800 meters. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics she won Costa Rica's only Olympic gold medal, in the women's 200 meter freestyle, defeating favored competitor Franziska van Almsick of Germany, and became the first person from Central America to win Olympic gold. She won two bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, in the 200 meter and 400 meter freestyle, gold in the 200 meter freestyle at the 1998 World Championships, and was named World Swimmer of the Year in 1997 by Swimming World Magazine and Costa Rica's Athlete of the Century in 1999. Her career included a doping ban in 2002 for norandrosterone, later reduced from four years to two, which she contested.