This is Part I of a two-part series on former Olympic swimmer
Lynn Gautschi. Lynn Gautschi still can
’t watch the Olympics. More than 30 years after her last of two
trips to the Summer Games, the former Olympic swimmer is still
overcome with emotion by her experience.
This is Part I of a two-part series on former Olympic swimmer Lynn Gautschi.
Lynn Gautschi still can’t watch the Olympics.
More than 30 years after her last of two trips to the Summer Games, the former Olympic swimmer is still overcome with emotion by her experience.
“When I hear them say the Olympic motto and play the national anthem, I go to pieces,” Gautschi said. “It’s still pretty emotional.
“I’ve probably watched about 30 minutes since I retired (from Olympic competition). It’s tough. You train for 15 years and then it’s over in two minutes and 34 seconds. I’m still pissed about finishing third 30 years ago. I should have won the gold.”
When Lynn Gautschi (Vidali) was at her athletic peak, there was no one more competitive, more driven.
“I wanted to be the fastest swimmer in the world and nothing was going to stop me,” she said.
It was that drive that spurred her on a meteoric rise to the top of the swimming world and into the cauldron of world events.
In her early teens, Gautschi left home to train with the vaunted Santa Clara Swim Club, swimming with the likes of Mark Spitz, and Claudia Kolb.
At 14, Gautschi broke the 200-meter individual medley world record and her whole world changed.
“When I touched, somebody said you just broke a world record and I asked what’s a world record?,” Gautschi said. “I found out real quick.”
Two years later, Gautschi was on her way to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, having already been featured in Life magazine.
At 16, Gautschi said she was “in a daze” but remembers hearing the gunshots when more than 300 Mexican students were killed by army troops after a campus protest turned into a riot.
And, she remembers her friend John Carlos and Tommy Smith raising their black-gloved fists during the U.S. national anthem in protest against racism at home.
“Everything was blown out of proportion by the media,” Gautschi said. “I was from San Francisco. I had black friends. I didn’t think it was that big a deal. They were just expressing their racial pride.”
Gautschi won a silver medal in the 1968 Games, adding to the Santa Clara Swim Club’s trove of medals. (Gautschi said the club won more medals than most other countries that year.)
Four years later, Gautschi went to the Olympics again, this time in Munich.
It was another highly charged Games that included a raid by Palestinian terrorists who took a group of Israeli athletes hostage and then executed them.
“That was horrible,” Gautschi said. “I came back from dinner and there was nothing but army tanks (in the Olympic village). Security was horrible in the village. I had seen a lot of stuff in San Francisco but nothing like that.”
Gautschi remembers seeing the wall pocked with bullet holes where the Israelis were lined up and shot, and subsequently where wreathes were hung in rememberance. She said she slipped out of the Olympic village and slept under an army cot in a bathroom that night.
Though athletics took a backseat to the other events of the day, Gautschi also remembers being devastated by a sub-par performance at the Games. She went out too fast and faded at the end, salvaging a bronze instead of winning the gold.
Today, the 50-year-old Martin Murphy teacher is focused on her kids’ athletic careers.
Ironcially, while Ryan, 18, and Ronni, 16, are talented and accomplished swimmers, their forte resides in another aquatic pursuit — water polo.
Last season, the pair became the first siblings to win simulataneous league Most Valuable Player awards as they led their respective Live Oak High squads to league titles and section playoff berths.
Both also helped lead the Acorn swim teams to league titles and qualified for CCS.
But both say their future is in water polo despite their mother’s Olympic swimming legacy.
Ryan, who will be a senior at Live Oak this fall, said his famous mom’s accomplishments have been both a boon and a burden.
“People look at me like I’m like her so there’s some pressure,” Ryan said. “But she also knows a lot of people so I get a lot of coaching. I want to go (to the Olympics) in water polo but my mom wants me to go in swimming.”
Ryan has spent the summer competing with the Morgan Hill Water Polo 18-and-under and Open clubs that just returned from a big tournament in Hawaii.
Ronni, who is entering her junior year at Live Oak and competed in Junior Olympic water polo this summer, agreed with her brother about which sport is the bigger draw.
“I’d rather go (to the Olympics) in water polo,” Ronni said. “I don’t want to be a swimmer because I want to make it in my own sport. (Mom) won bronze and silver and I want to win gold to finish the set.”
For her part, Lynn Gautschi said she believes her kids have every opportunity to succeed.
Both are very, very talented swimmers,” Lynn said. “I ask for their autographs. They can do just about what they want to do. It just depends on how hard they work.”
Jim Johnson is the Morgan Hill Times’ Sports Editor. Call him at (408) 779-4106 or email him at jj******@*************es.com
