On This Day In History - When Salnikov Set The Last Of His Three 1500 Standards
Timeline - The SOS Daily Trawl of official World long-course records (plus all pre 1954 standards, all pools and metrics) set this day throughout history.
On this day...
1976: Antje Stille, of the GDR, became the third swimmer for her country to claim a second 200m backstroke World record in just two years. Her pace was almost 6sec faster than the time in which American Melissa Belote had claimed Olympic gold at Munich 1972. The GDR operated a systematic doping program:
Craig Lord
1982: Vladimir Salnikov set the third and last of his three World records over 1500m freestyle with a 14:56.35 in Moscow at the Soviet Winter Championships. The time would remain the World records until Jorg Hoffmann, of Germany, claimed the World title, and record, in Perth Western Australia ahead of a young talent racing at home o silver on his way to a stellar career of his own - Kieren Perkins. Hoffmann was not the first man to swim faster than Salnikov had, but the 14:53.59 clocked by Glen Housman in 1989 was never ratified because the electronic timing failed at Australian Trials in Adelaide, and FINA would not accept the hand-held times for the record.
Craig Lord
On this day, March 12, in history...
1982: Vladimir Salnikov, of the Soviet Union, became the first man to swim inside 3mins 50 in the 400m freestyle, at the GDR Vs URS Duel in Moscow
1976: Ulrike Tauber, of the GDR, set one of her World 200m medley records at the GDR vs URS Duel in Tallinn, almost 15 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall was followed by the capture of documents that would prove that East Germany operated a systematic state-secret doping program that stretched to many thousands of athletes across a wide number of sports, swimming included.
1960: Wiltrud Urselmann, of West Germany, became the second of four German women to hold the World record in the 100m breaststroke at a time when the event was not on the Olympic program. Urselman claimed silver in the 200m at Rome 1960 behind Britain's Anita Lonsbrough.
