Claudia Kolb

Claudia Kolb is an American swimmer who became one of the leading individual medley swimmers of the 1960s. Born on 19 December 1949 in California, she trained with the Santa Clara Swim Club from the age of ten until the end of her Olympic career. At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo she was only 14 and took the silver medal in the 200 metre breaststroke, the first American woman to medal in that stroke at the Games. At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City she won both the 200 metre and the 400 metre individual medley, setting Olympic records in the heats and the finals. Over her career she won 25 national AAU titles and set 23 world records, was named Swimming World magazine World Swimmer of the Year in 1967, and entered the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1975. After retiring in 1968 she became a swim coach at clubs and at Stanford University and Pacific University.