Craig Beardsley

Personal information
Full name	Craig Russell Beardsley
National team	United States
Born	1960 (age 64–65) New York, New York
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Butterfly
College team	University of Florida
Medal record Men's swimming RepresentingUnited States World Championships (LC) 1982 Guayaguil 200 m butterfly Pan American Games 1979 San Juan 200 m butterfly 1983 Caracas 200 m butterfly

Craig Russell Beardsley (born 1960) is an American former competitionswimmer who was a world record-holder in the 200-meterbutterfly for three years in the early 1980s. Although he qualified as a member of the1980 U.S. Olympic Team, Beardsley could not compete in the Olympics because of theU.S. boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympic Games.

Craig Beardsley was born inNew York City in 1960, the son of an American father, Russell Beardsley, and aChinese American immigrant mother, Jeanne Loh.^[1] He attended theUnited Nations International School in the city, where he was a stand-outcello player, and graduated fromNorthern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan after his family moved toHarrington Park, New Jersey.^[1][2] Prior to attending college, Beardsley never had an opportunity to swim for a school team because none of his schools sponsored an organized swim team.^[1]

Beardsley won the gold medal in his signature event, the 200-meter butterfly, at the 1979Pan American Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After high school, he received an athletic scholarship to attend theUniversity of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he swam for coachRandy Reese'sFlorida Gators swimming and diving team inNational Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competition from 1979 to 1982.^[4] Beardsley qualified for the star-crossed U.S. Olympic team in 1980, but could not participate when, at the behest of U.S. PresidentJimmy Carter, the U.S. Olympic Committee voted to boycott the1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Russia after theSoviet Union invadedAfghanistan in late 1979. Like many of the best American athletes of 1980, he was denied the opportunity to participate in the largest stage in international sports. At the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials held the month before the Olympics, Beardsley set a new world record of 1:58.21 in the 200-meter butterfly—a time that was over a second faster than Soviet swimmerSergey Fesenko's gold medal time in the 1980 Olympic finals.^[5]

After the United States-led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics, Beardsley continued to train and participate in competitive swimming. He held both the American and world records for the 200-meter butterfly from 1980 to 1983.Swimming World Magazine named him its American Male Swimmer of the Year in 1981. Beardsley was a two-time NCAA champion in the 200-meter butterfly and received eightAll-American honors while swimming for the Gators.^[4] In 1983, he again won the gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly at the Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela.

Beardsley failed to qualify for the U.S Olympic team in 1984, by placing third by 0.36 of a second in the U.S. Olympic Trials,^[6] and he retired from competitive swimming afterward. Taking advantage of the hard feelings created by the American-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Soviet Union and otherEastern Bloc countries had pushed for and received Olympic rules changes limiting each country to only two participants in each swimming event.^[6] The United States, as the dominant swimming power, was hurt the most.^[6]

Beardsley is a veteran celebrity swimmer forSwim Across America (SAA), a charitable organization that raises funds for cancer research.^[7] He has been an active participant in SAA events since 1987.^[7]

He graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in management in 1983, and was later inducted into theUniversity of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great."^[8] Beardsley became aWall Street trader, working for Prudential Securities in New York City.^[9] In 1992, he married Ann-Elizabeth McKay Hensel, a former member of the U.S. nationalfigure skating team.^[9] He has two children, Carter and Caroline,^[7] and lives inChatham, New Jersey.^[3]

• List of University of Florida alumni
• List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members
• List of University of Florida Olympians
• List of World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming (men)
• World record progression 200 metres butterfly

• Caraccioli, Jerry, & Tom Caraccioli,Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, New Chapter Press, Washington, D.C. (2009).ISBN 978-0-942257-54-0.

• 1960 births
• Living people
• American male butterfly swimmers
• Florida Gators men's swimmers
• World record setters in swimming
• Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan alumni
• People from Chatham Borough, New Jersey
• Sportspeople from Morris County, New Jersey
• People from Harrington Park, New Jersey
• Sportspeople from Bergen County, New Jersey
• Swimmers from New York City
• Swimmers from New Jersey
• World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming
• Swimmers at the 1979 Pan American Games
• Swimmers at the 1983 Pan American Games
• Medalists at the 1979 Pan American Games
• Medalists at the 1983 Pan American Games
• Pan American Games gold medalists for the United States in swimming
• 20th-century American sportsmen

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