Roland Matthes, from Erfurt, is the most decorated backstroke swimmer with the biggest count of pioneering standards in history.

The jewels in his crown are the four Olympic gold medals won over 100m and 200m at both the Mexico City 1968 and Munich 1972 Olympic Games, that quad the first, and, for 52 years only, the only one of its kind on backstroke.

He remains the only man to ever achieve the feat, while the only woman to do so is Australia's Kaylee McKeown, who completed her double-double at Paris 2024, three years after she first achieved the double at Tokyo202one.

With his swansong Olympics in 1976, Matthes claimed a total of four gold, two silver and a bronze over three Games. Between 1967 and 1976, the 21-times World record holder (16 of the standards on backstroke, 7 over 100m, 9 over 200m) was unbeaten on backstroke when it counted on the biggest of occasions.

An overview of Roland Matthes' game-changing career:

Pat Besford, the British doyenne of swimming journalists in her day dubbed the protégé of coach Marlies Grohe-Geissler the “Rolls-Royce of Swimming” because of the smoothness and elegance of Matthes’ ahead-of-his-time technique.

After his racing days for the GDR were over, Matthes worked as an orthopaedic surgeon. He kept in touch with swimming and gave advice and assistance to German swimmers such as Franziska van Almsick down the years.

In 2004, Matthes was awarded the Golden Sports Pyramid for his life’s work and shortly thereafter became the first former GDR athlete to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports. 

In 2005, Prof Helge Pfeifer, one of the scientists who helped to deliver the State Plan 14:25 doping program of the German Democratic Republic revealed in an interview with this author that Grohe was the only coach who “got away with always saying no but keeping her job … Roland Matthes needed no help”.

From the SOS Archive - a memory of the Rolls Royce of backstroke: “Hello – I’m Roland Matthes, I Swam Backstroke"