Debbie Meyer

(l) and Meyer (r) Meyer was born in 1952 in Annapolis, Maryland, and lived in Haddonfield, New Jersey during childhood. She moved with her family to warm and sunny Sacramento, California when her father was transferred with Campbell Soup. She attended Sacramento's Rio Americano High School, and was trained during her high school years and beyond by Hall of Fame Coach Sherm Chavoor at the Arden Hills Swim Club in Carmichael, as were fellow 1968 U.S. team swimming Olympians Mark Spitz, Michael J. Burton, John Ferris, Sue Peterson, and John Nelson. Chavoor was one of the early coaches to challenge young elite women swimmers with "overdistance training", which focused on workouts that gave more total yardage and often featured mid-range and distance intervals to build greater endurance and speed. Chavoor would also serve as Head Coach of the U.S. Women's Olympic swim team in 1968, where he would again coach Meyer, who may have had greater confidence and focus having Chavoor manage her at the Olympics. ==1968 Mexico City Olympics==

In 1968, the women's freestyle races at 200-meter and 800-meter distances were added to the Summer Olympics for the first time, giving Meyer, a freestyle specialist, two new events where she could dominate the competition. Prior to 1968, the longest race for women was the 400-meter freestyle. In contrast, the male competitors had raced the 1,500-meter freestyle (the metric mile) for decades, dating back to 1896. Meyer had obstacles to overcome in the 1968 Olympics, as she had developed a stomach ailment in Mexico City and had just recovered from a painful bout of bursitis in her left shoulder. Competing as a favorite in all three events, Meyer met and exceeded expectations despite her ailments and took gold in the 200-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle races at age 15, becoming the first swimmer to win three individual gold medals in one Olympics. Katie Ledecky is the only other female swimmer to have won all three events, in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Despite competing at the high altitude of Mexico City, her winning times at the Olympic Games were 2:10.5 for the 200-meter, 4:31.8 for the 400-meter, and 9:24.0 for the 800-meter distances, all of them new or first-time Olympic records. While overcoming her problems with asthma, Meyer broke 15 world records in swimming during her career. She broke 24 American records and won 19 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national championships. Reluctant to continue training for the 1972 Olympics, Meyer retired from competitive swimming in 1970. She would attend UCLA, but not as a swimmer. On July 5, 2004, Meyer was inducted into the American National High School Hall of Fame. ==See also==