“It came to be that when I was 16 years old I won the United States Nationals. I was the best in the United States. Later that summer, I broke the world record for the 100-meter back stroke. I was the best in the world!”
“The Courage To Succeed,”
a presentation to the American Railway and Bridge and Building Association,
Sep 1997
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The year Diana Nyad was 16, four phenomenal athletes held all the world records and U.S. national titles in the women’s 100 back. Nyad was not one of them.
Only Ann Fairlie, Judy Humbarger, Karen Muir, and Elaine Tanner won U.S. titles and set world records in the 100 back while Nyad was 16. Nyad never mentions the names of these extraordinary swimmers.
Ann Fairlie (South Africa) When Nyad was 16, Fairlie set three backstroke world records and won the 100 meters at the 1966 Long Course Nationals. At the time, Fairlie was 17, the eldest of the four record-setters. (Image via “Ann Fairlie - world record holder.”) |
Judy Humbarger (U.S.A.) As a 15-year-old, Humbarger won the 200 back at the 1966 Short Course Nationals. She also won the 200 at the Long Course Nationals the previous summer. (Image via Swimming World, December 1966.) |
Karen Muir (South Africa) Muir set the first of her eighteen world records when she was 12. She set two others when she was 14, Nyad 16. (Image via “Karen Muir.”) |
Elaine Tanner (Canada) Tanner won the 100 back at the 1966 Short Course Nationals. She was 15. The following summer, she set three world records. (Image via North Shore News.) |
Diana Nyad never came close to winning the 100 backstroke—or any event for that matter—at the U.S. Nationals. And setting a world record? She might as well claim to be the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island.
How Close Did Nyad Come To A Nationals Win?
Not close at all.
In the 1960s, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) held two U.S. national meets each year: a short-course championship in the spring and a long-course championship in the summer. So Nyad had two chances to win at a national meet while she was sixteen: the short course nationals in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, April 15-17, 1966, and the long course nationals in Lincoln, Nebraska, August 18-21. Nyad turned seventeen the day after the Lincoln meet ended.
At the short course nationals in Bartlesville, 15-year-old Canadian Elaine Tanner, a.k.a. “Mighty Mouse,” won the 100-yard backstroke in 1:00.7. Judy Humbarger, also 15, took second in 1:01.4. Nyad went 1:05.2, placing 19th.
Humbarger won the 200 in 2:11.8, an American record. Nyad touched the wall almost 12 seconds later in 2:23.5, good for 16th. That would be Nyad’s highest finish in either of the two national meets for which she qualified.
At the long course nationals in Lincoln, 17-year-old South African Ann Fairlie won the 100-meter back in 1:07.9, just missing the 1:07.4 world record she set a month before. Fourteen-year-old Karen Muir, also of South Africa, won the 200 in 2:26.4, breaking the world mark she set three weeks earlier. Nyad did not compete.
She did compete, however, in the 1968 short course nationals at the University of Pittsburgh. She finished 36th in the 200-yard back in 2:22.7. Kaye Hall of Tacoma, Washington, finished first in 2:10.8. So again, Nyad wasn’t close. (Four months later, Hall would win the 100 at the Nyad-less Olympic Trials, then go on to set a world record in Mexico City.)
Table 1: Winners of backstroke events at national meets during Diana Nyad’s prime pool-swimming years. Bold text indicates winners during the year Nyad was 16.
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How close did Nyad come to being “the best in the world”?
Nyad swam the fastest 100 backstroke of her life—1:05.0 for 100 yards—in February 1966.* We can use that time to compare to U.S. swimmer Cathy Ferguson’s prevailing 100-meter world record, 1:07.7. Ferguson set that record as a 16-year-old at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Various online tools (see, for instance, the calculators at Swimming World, SwimSwam, and TeamUnify) convert Nyad’s yards time to between 1:13.35 and 1:14.45 for 100 meters, far from Ferguson’s mark.
* The May 8, 1966, edition of the Fort Lauderdale News reports that “Miss Nyad . . . swam a 1:04.6 backstroke which would have been a national high school record if she was not disqualified for missing a turn.” Two problems with that (besides the obvious—if she turned before the wall, she didn’t swim the whole distance): First, nation-wide high school records didn’t exist in 1966; second, if they had, Judy Humbarger would have held the record for the 100 backstroke. In April, the 15-year-old star swam 1:01.4 to set an American record at the short course nationals. Thirteen other nationals competitors, most of them high school students, finished under Nyad’s 1:04.6.
So Ferguson’s world record beat Nyad’s fastest time by at least 5.5 seconds, an eon in a 100-meter race.
Still, when Nyad talks about national championships and world records, she only mentions one person: Diana Nyad. So let’s end by acknowledging two more great athletes whom Diana Nyad ignores.
Ferguson set four world records and won six national championships. As a 16-year-old, she set the 100 backstroke world record at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. (Image via the Los Angeles Public Library.) |
Hall won three national championships. She turned 17 in 1968, the year she set a world record while winning the 100 back at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. (Image via “Pool of Gold.”) |
Further Reading
Diana Nyad, All-American
A recently uncovered newsletter includes an article about the 1967 Girl’s High School All America Team. Bear in mind that few high schools had girls’ swim teams in 1967. Many and perhaps most of the best high-school-aged female swimmers swam for club teams and would not appear on the list. For instance, you won’t find Judy Humbarger or Kaye Hall. In December 1967, Hall became the first woman to swim the 100-yard backstroke in under a minute. Note also that Nyad was not even the best backstroker at her high school.
Florida Gold Coast Association Swimming Records
1966 - Humbarger fastest in both the 100- and 200-yard back at 1:01.4 and 2:11.8.
1965 - Nyad has the fastest 100-yard back in the 13-14 age group: 1:07.1.
1964 - Nyad swims 1:19.5 for the 100-meter back. Ferguson is the fastest at 1:07.7.
World Record Progressions, 1964-1968
After Ann Fairlie became the world’s fastest female 100 backstroker in July 1966, Elaine Tanner, Karen Muir, and Kaye Hall batted the record back and forth six times over three years. After Muir became the fastest 200 backstroker, she and Tanner lowered the record four more times in the next two years. Nyad, of course, never mentions these phenomenal athletes or their records. (I know, I’m starting to sound like a broken record.)
Table 2: Women’s backstroke world record progression, 1964-1968. Records set when Nyad was 16 are in bold text.
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Complete World Record Progressions
Nationals results:
Karen Muir
Obituary (requires subscription)
Muir retired from swimming while still in her teens, went on to become a doctor, and practiced in Africa and Canada. Her obituary quotes a friend, Claire Radcliffe, saying that Muir didn’t talk about her swimming feats. “Karen never said anything about it,” says Radcliffe. “She would never, ever think of bragging. It was never about her.” Muir died in 2013 at age 60.
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