{"id":427891,"date":"2020-07-06T00:10:49","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T07:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=427891"},"modified":"2024-10-28T11:27:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T18:27:06","slug":"helene-madison-90th-anniversary-of-the-advent-of-the-queen-of-waves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/helene-madison-90th-anniversary-of-the-advent-of-the-queen-of-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"Helene Madison – 90th Anniversary Of The Advent Of The ‘Queen Of Waves’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the advent of Helene Madison<\/strong> as a dominant force in freestyle swimming. By the time the American was done racing, she had gone down in history as an Olympic and World-record pioneer who set 16 World records on freestyle in just 16 months. This day in 193o she claimed the global 880y (800m) standard<\/span><\/p>\n

Helene Madison<\/strong> (USA) was dubbed “The Queen of Waves<\/em>“. Her pioneering achievements in the early 1930s live eternal: she was the first swimmer ever to hold every world freestyle record \u2013 from 100yd through to the mile \u2013 at the same time, a feat that has been matched only once since, by Shane Gould<\/strong> (AUS, 1971-1972).<\/p>\n

Gould remains, technically, the first to ever be accepted as having held the official 100-1500m records simultaneously: Madison set the 880 yards world mark once in her career, in 1930, but the 800m distance was not an official world record until after the American’s swim, while the distance was not swum in Olympic waters until 1968.<\/p>\n

Remove FINA bureaucracy from the education and Madison, who set her first world mark in March 1930 and her last in August 1932, was the first queen of waves over 100-1500-mile speed. She clocked 11.41.2 over 880 yards on July 6, 1930 in Long Beach<\/strong><\/span>. On August 23, 1931, Yvonne Goddard<\/strong> of France clocked 12.18.8 over 800m and that was, technically, the first official FINA world record over the specific distance of 800m.<\/p>\n

Madison, who passed away in 1970, would never know but in 1973, FINA revisited its world-record history lists, removed Goddard and a swim by American Lenore Kight<\/strong>, from 1933, and accepted Madison’s mark as an official world 800m record. Not long before its decision on Madison, FINA had stopped accepting the 880 yards distance for world-record ratification over 800m, leaving Debbie Meyer<\/strong>, the pioneering 1968 triple Olympic gold medallist for the USA, as the last (and therefore, technically, reigning, world record holder over 880 yards, at 9.44.1 from a swim in 1967.<\/p>\n

The official FINA lists suggest Madison established seven World freestyle records between 1930 and 1932 but the actual count was 16 in a period of just 16 months. The records including yards standards and distances official in those days but no longer counted: the 300y distance dropped in 1938, the 500m and 500y dropped in 1940 and 1942 respectively, the 1000y in 1938 and the 1000m in 1941; while the 1760y, mile, record passed into history in 1955.<\/p>\n

\"Helene_Madison_and_Johnny_Weissmuller_1932\"

Helene Madison and Johnny Weissmuller in 1932 – Photo Courtesy: ISHOF<\/p><\/div>\n

The Madison Pantheon Of Pioneering Pace<\/h2>\n