Swimming

Michael Phelps & Bob Bowman Enter ISHOF Together as Part of Loaded Class of 2023

March 15, 2023

A star-studded group, arguably the best in history, has been announced for the Class of 2023 that will be inducted to the International Swimming Hall of Fame in September.

The class is made up primarily of athletes who retired after the Rio 2016 Olympics. To be eligible for the Hall of Fame, athletes must have been officially retired from competition for at least four years.

The class of 13 includes 6 Americans, plus two other swimmers who trained primarily in the United States during the elite part of their careers.

The list includes the most-accomplished swimmer in history, American Michael Phelps, who has won more Olympic medals than any athlete in history, in any sport, in any era (including the ancient Olympics).

A full listing of Phelps’ accomplishments could fill a book, but among them are 39 FINA World Records, more than any other swimmer in history, 26 long course World Championships, more than any other swimmer in history, and most gold medals at a single Olympics with 8. Phelps has accomplished so much that he currently holds 20 Guinness World Records, which itself is a record among athletes.

And that doesn’t even include his World Record for longest televised putt at 160 feet, which was recently broken by Ian Poulter.

Fittingly, Phelps will go in with his coach Bob Bowman. The pair rose through the ranks together from the age group level all the way to the Olympic Games. Bowman has coached other swimmers, though obviously none to the same level of success as Phelps. He is currently enjoying a run of success in the second phase of his career as a collegiate coach at Arizona State University, where among others he is coaching the defending World Champion in the 200 and 400 IMs Leon Marchand.

For coaches to be eligible, they “must have a significant international record and have been coaching at least 25 years.”

The class is so deep that a list of some of the true superstars of the sport don’t even get headlines.

American Missy Franklin, who won a record-setting 7 gold medals at the 2013 World Championships, is part of the class. She is a two-time FINA World Swimmer of the Year and also the owner of 5 Olympic gold medals.

Japan’s Kosuke Kitajima, who won 4 individual Olympic gold medals by sweeping the 100 and 200 breaststrokes at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, is also in the class. He was so influential that he literally changed the sport, leading FINA officials to add the controversial dolphin kick to the underwater pullout phase of the race.

Kitajima recently announced his return to racing – at the Masters level. His level of fame is so great in his native Japan that the Tokyo team of the International Swimming Leauge – the Frog Kings – was named after him.

Kirsty Coventry, who is responsible for 7 of Zimbabwe’s 8 all-time Olympic medals across all sports, will be inducted. So too will Cesar Cielo, who has held the 50 free World Record for more than 13 years and held the 100 free record for even longer until it was broken last year.

Paralympian Trischa Zorn, who USA Swimming has named its Disability Award after, is also in the class. She has a whopping 55 medals at the Paralympics, making her the most-decorated athlete in the history of those Games, won between 1980 and 2004.

The class doesn’t stop with the swimmers, either. Chinese diver Wu Minxia, a 5-time Olympic gold medalist and 7-time Olympic medalist overall in 3-meter springboard events, is part of the class as one of the most decorated divers in history.

Russian synchronized swimmer Natalie Ishchenko, a five-time Olympic Champion and 19-time World Champion, is part of the class as well. American water polo player Heather Petri, who is one of two women to win four Olympic medals in water polo – including gold at the 2012 Games. Both are the 35th honorees in their respective categories – the overwhelming majority of athletes in the Hall of Fame are swimmers.

Bowman is one of two coaches inducted into the Hall of Fame in the Class of 2023. The other is American synchro coach Chris Carver, who heads the Santa Clara Aquamaids program. While Russia has risen to become the dominant power in the sport, Carver was the co-head coach of the US National Team that won every gold medal available to the US in elite international competition between the 1991 Pan Am Games and the 1996 Olympic Games, including the first-ever team event gold medal at the 1996 Games, where the American earned the first perfect 100 point score in Olympic history.

7 of the 9 members of the 2000 US Olympic Synchro Team were part of Carver’s home clube, as were 8 of 9 members of the 2004 team. In total, she has produced more than half of the United States’ synchronized swimming Olympians since 1984, and once earned US Synchro’s Coach of the Year awards 14 consecutive times.

French open water swimmer Stephane Lecat, who won the 2000 European Championship in the 25k, was inducted in the open water category. He is the 15th French person, and first open water swimmer from France, inducted into the Hall of Fame.

South African Sam Ramsamy was inducted as an Honor Contributor for his role in transitioning South Africa back into global sport post-aparrtheid and leading the South African Olympic team into a racially-integrated squad.

Ramsamy, the former head of South Africa’s Olympic Committee, was first elected to the FINA Bureau in 1996 and has served as FINA’s first Vice President since May 2021, and before that as Second Vice-President from 2017-2021, and Vice President from 2004-2017.