 Curtis at 22 after the National AAU meet in Daytona, posing in Boca Raton, FL., April, 1948 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Ann Elisabeth Curtis | |||||||||||||||||
| National team |  United States | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1926-03-06)March 6, 1926 | |||||||||||||||||
| Died | June 26, 2012(2012-06-26) (aged 86) San Rafael, California, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) | |||||||||||||||||
Spouse | Gordon Cuneo (m. 1949) | |||||||||||||||||
| Children | 5 | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle | |||||||||||||||||
| Club | Crystal Plunge Swim Club | |||||||||||||||||
| Coach | Charlie Sava (Crystal Plunge) | |||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Ann Elizabeth Curtis (March 6, 1926 – June 26, 2012), known after 1949 by her married nameAnn Elisabeth Cuneo was an American competitionswimmer and two-time Olympic champion at the 1948 London games. She would later have a career as a swim coach opening the Ann Curtis Swim Club and School of Swimming in Tera Linda, California.[1]
Ann Elisabeth Curtis was born inSan Francisco, California, and trained in her early years by nuns. She began swimming at the age of 9, while she and her sister spent two years at the Ursuline Convent boarding school in Santa Rosa. She later attended and graduated San Francisco'sWashington High School.[2][3][4][5] Recognized by a coach at San Francisco's Jewish Community Center, Ann and her sister Sue trained there initially, and then at the larger and modern Fairmont Hotel Pool.[1]
"1924 to be exact—the Crystal Plunge[6] (originally named the Crystal Palace Salt Water Baths) was opened at 775 Lombard Street,[5] between Mason and Taylor, by Italian immigrant Edward Cerruti, Jr. It was there that swim coach Charlie Sava (for whom the Larsen Park Pool at 19th Avenue and Wawona Street was re-named decades later) coached San Francisco native and George Washington High School grad Ann Curtis."[7]
Anne developed more quickly under the direction of Hall of Fame CoachCharlie Sava as a member of San Francisco'sCrystal Plunge Swimming Club that practiced at a wide 50-yard pool,[8] the Terrace Plunge,[9] now theTonga Room atFairmont San Francisco, a hotel in downtown San Francisco.[10] Sava, aware of her potential, managed Curtis for eight years, introducing modern training techniques.[11] Taking her under his wing when she was 14, Silva had Curtis train in the pool five hours split into morning and afternoon sessions. Silva's pool training included numerous sets with repeat intervals and occasional resistance training, usually out of the pool. She later described Sava as an effective and innovative coach, but a demanding task manager.[12][5] Already referred to as "The World's Greatest Woman Swimmer", in 1944, at age 18, she became the first woman, as well as the first swimmer, to receive the covetedJames E. Sullivan Award, recognizing her as the outstanding American amateur athlete of the year.[5]
Curtis attended theUniversity of California at Berkeley from 1944-1948, a strong swimming power, that then had no women’s swim team. While at Berkeley in 1944 she set world freestyle records in 1944 at 800 meters and 880 yards. In 1947 she established freestyle world records at the 100 yard, 400 meter and 440 yard events. During her Berkeley years, she travelled each day by ferry to train with her Coach Charlie Sava at San Francisco Bay's Treasure Island, half way between Berkeley and San Francisco.[13][14]
Considered that year's most successful woman swimmer, Curtis competed at the1948 Summer Olympics in London, England, winning a medal in everyfreestyle swimming race in which women were allowed to enter at the time.[5] She won her first gold medal in thewomen's 400-meter freestyle, setting an Olympic record on the way to winning by a margin of nearly four seconds. In her next race, she received the silver medal for her second-place finish in thewomen's 100-meter freestyle, a disappointing finish for her. She would later say she felt like she "had let down the world."[3]
Her favorite moment of the Games came during the third event, when she won her second gold medal as a member of thewomen's 4×100-meter freestyle relay team.[3] The United States was not favored to win, in part because she had placed second in the 100-meter individual event. When she took the water for the anchor leg in the relay, the United States team was in third place; she passedJohanna "Hannie" Termeulen of Holland and thenFritze Carstensen of Denmark to win the gold medal for the US by four-tenths of a second, setting another Olympic record in the process.[3] When she returned to San Francisco, she was honored in a parade along Montgomery andMarket Street.[15]
During her career she set five world and 56 U.S. records, and earned 30 National Championship titles.[12][5] By the time she swam at the 1948 London Games, Curtis was engaged to be married to Gordon Cuneo, a former basketball player for Cal; they were married in 1949, and she chose not to train for the 1952 Games,[3] also in part because she had accepted a car from the City of San Francisco upon her return from London, which made her a professional swimmer. The couple would have five children.[1][2]
Curtis swam professionally from 1948-1951 after retiring from competition. She began touring with the Nick Kahler Famous Sports and Boat Show where she demonstrated competitive strokes and raced with 1936 backstroke Olympic gold medalistAdolph Kiefer, who worked organizing talent for the show. She would please the crowd swimming with a seal, who always outswam her and Kiefer. She then toured with Sheehan's Aqua Follies, featuring music, and elaborate costumes, and would later make a commercial for Woodbury Soap. She ceased working after 1951, with the birth of her first child.[1]
In 1959, after retiring from competition and starting her family, she opened the Ann Curtis Swim Club and School of Swimming in Tera Linda with her husband. The couple took out a loan, bought the land, and built the facility that featured a 75-foot competition pool and a smaller pool of 50 feet. Once under way, the Cuneo's bought additional land to build an adjacent home. In 1983, the club had ten teachers, 950 students, and its own swim club that had 100 families. A successful venture, the swim club mentored several future champions and operated over twenty years. One of her outstanding swimmers was 1972 Munich Olympian and future CoachRick Demont who swam with Curtis in his early years.[1][3]
She was inducted into theInternational Swimming Hall of Fame in 1966,[16] and theBay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1983.
Curtis died at her home inSan Rafael, California on June 26, 2012, aged 86.[17]
| Date | Distance | Pool | Time | Location | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 May 1943 | 220 yd (200 m) | short course | 2:32.4 | Crystal Plunge | National Junior |
| 12 June 1943 | 100 yd (91 m) | 1:02.5 | Fleishhacker Pool | American | |
| 13 June 1943 | 220 yd (200 m) | long course | 2:33.6 | Fleishhacker Pool | American |
| 30 July 1944 | 800 m (870 yd) | 11:08.6 | Fleishhacker Pool | World | |
| 8 August 1943 | 440 yd (400 m) | long course | 5:25.0 | Fleishhacker Pool | American |
| 15 August 1944 | 440 yd (400 m) | short course | 5:21.7 | Athens Athletic Club | National Championship |
| 2 May 1947 | 100 yd (91 m) | long course | 0:59.4 | UW University Pool | American (tied World)[18] |
| Men's Team |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Women's Team | ||
| 300 m | |
|---|---|
| 400 m |
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