 Schollander, Ilman, Austin and Clark display gold medals at 1964 Olympics | |||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Michael MacKay Austin | ||||||||||||||
| Nickname | "Mike" | ||||||||||||||
| National team | United States | ||||||||||||||
| Born | (1943-08-26)August 26, 1943 (age 81) West Orange, New Jersey, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (185 cm) | ||||||||||||||
| Weight | 187 lb (85 kg) | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle | ||||||||||||||
| Club | New Haven Swim Club[1] | ||||||||||||||
| College team | Yale University | ||||||||||||||
| Coach | Phil Moriarty (Yale) | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Michael MacKay Austin (born August 26, 1943) is a retired American swimmer who competed for Yale University and was a 1964 Tokyo Olympic champion in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay.
In July of 1957 Austin swam for the Sherman Oaks, California team under coach Tony Dandeneau where he competed in the Western States Invitational Championships in Santa Monica. He was a swim star for theVan Nuys High School Wolves in Los Angeles, before moving to Rochester, New York in 1958. As his Rochester area High School lacked a pool, he swam with the Buffalo Athletic Club under Coach Chuck Baldwin. In January, 1959, he swam the 100-yard freestyle in :53 seconds and had recorded a time of :58 seconds for the 100-yard butterfly. Austin was ranked first in the nation in his age group in the 100-yard free and butterfly, and in the 400 freestyle relay.[2][3][4]
Austin attendedYale University, where he swam for coachPhil Moriarty'sYale Bulldogs swimming and diving team inNational Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) andIvy League competition from 1962 to 1964. As a Yale Freshman in March, 1961, he set a record in New Haven as part of a 440-yard freestyle relay team that swam a 3:15.9 at the National AAU Indoor Swimming Championships. Austin's own split time was a :47.7.[5] He captained the 1964 Yale swim team that placed first at the EISL Championship and third at the NCAAs. At Senior Nationals in 1963, he anchored the American-record 400 freestyle championship relay. He also won the 1964 NCAA championship in the 50 freestyle and was an anchor of Yale's NCAA championship and NCAA record-setting 400 freestyle relays in 1963 and 1964, swimming one of the fastest relay splits in history.[6]
In August 1963, swimming with the New Haven Swim Club during a summer break, he came in second in the 100-meter freestyle with a time of 55.2 at the National AAU Outdoor Meet in Chicago.[1][7] He graduated from Yale with his bachelor's degree in 1964. Austin donated his Olympic gold medal to his alma mater in 2006.[7]
He represented the United States at the1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, and won a gold medal in the4 × 100 m freestyle relay with teammatesSteve Clark,Gary Ilman andDon Schollander, setting a new world record of 3:33.2.[8] Individually, he placed sixth in the100 m freestyle with a time of 54.5 seconds.[9]
In later years, he worked in the financial field, where he labored overseas for many years before coming back to America and taking a position as CFO for Cambridge, Massachusetts's Strategic Science and Technologies LLC, currently a biotechnology company.[7]
Media related toMike Austin (swimmer) at Wikimedia Commons| Men's team |
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