Anne Warner Cribbs Deemed Ineligible By Ethics Committee to Hold Office With USOPC

Anne Warner in 1959. Photo Courtesy: Tommy Cobb / Swimming World Archive

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee ethics panel has declared former Olympic swimmer Anne Warner Cribbs ineligible to hold office with the U.S. Olympian and Paralympian Association, an influential alumni group, according to a story from the Orange County Register.

Cribbs has referred to herself as an Olympic gold medalist due to her role in the 4×100 medley heats team that won gold in 1960, when she was known as Anne Warner. But Cribbs did not compete in the final, with Patty Kempner swimming the breaststroke leg on the gold medal winning team at finals. At the time in 1960, the IOC only awarded medals to relay swimmers that competed in the finals, and that rule has since been amended by FINA and the IOC prior to the 1992 Olympics to award medals to relay swimmers that compete in the preliminary rounds.

The ethics panel found that Cribbs, president and CEO of the San Francisco Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee and the former USA Table Tennis board chair, “is not eligible to be a USOPA officer based on the representations she made about her medal status” in a video provided the USOPC, according to an email from Holly Shick, USOPC chief ethics and compliance officer, provided to the Orange County Register.

The ruling follows a USOPC investigation into allegations that USOPC by-laws were violated during a recent election of USOPA in which Cribbs was a candidate.

The USOPA election dispute is significant because the organization has two seats on the USOPC board of directors, which plays a leading role in setting the priorities and direction of the USOPC and the 50 national governing bodies under its umbrella.

Read the full story from the Orange County Register here.

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Jane Swagerty Hill

3 years ago

It’s about time she was called out on a falsehood. She’s been saying she was a “gold medalist” for years even though many of us Olympians knew it to be untrue.

Ryan Guerra

3 years ago

This reminds me of how ASCAs John Leonard used to go around falsely telling people he was in the Army and was a special forces sniper in the Vietnam War and Skip Kenney, who was, called him out on it.

Edward Wiliams

3 years ago

Reply to Ryan Guerra

Anne Cribbs, we now know, has been lyingfor 50 plus years about how “as a 15 year old, i won the Gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games” It is time that she was finally outed,

John Zugnoni

3 years ago

This is nonsense. The results of the 1960 Olympics have been been public knowledge for 60 years, and she is being penalized now? Was anyone harmed? In legal terms, the USOPC should be considered estopped from ruling her ineligible. Let her go!!!