Great Moments in Olympic Swimming History

East Germany's Kristin Otto swam to 6 gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. She was the only women to win that many golds, and to win in three different strokes, butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle. It was later learned that she had been part of a systematic East German doping process.

Backstroker Krisztina Egerszegi of Hungary becomes the second swimmer in Olympic history to win gold medals in the same event at three successive Olympic games in the 200 Backstroke.

Butterfly swimmer Misty Hyman (USA) was not expected to win the gold at the Sydney games, but in a near-perfect swim she claimed gold over the local favorite, to the disbelief of the quieted Aussie crowd.

Jason Lezak anchored the US Men's relay to a Gold medal, starting over 1/2 second behind the French team and their swimmer, the (then) world record holder in the 100 free. With 50 meters to go, Lezak was over 3/4 of a second behind. With 25 meters to go, Lezak seemed to have a burst of energy while the French swimmer started to fade, and at the wall the US swimmer out-touched Alain Bernard by .08 seconds. It was one of the greatest anchor legs in history; Lezak split a 46.06.

By the end of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps won more Olympic Gold medals than any other Olympic athlete (16 total – 14 Gold, 0 Silver, 2 Bronze). And he has the most medals in a single Olympics, 8 in 2004 and 2008 - and in '08, all 8 were gold ones.

Dara Torres made 5 USA Olympic Teams, medaling in all of them. Dara is tied for second on the list of US atheltes with the most Olympic medals with 12 (4G - 4S - 4B).