Have you had a close encounter with an Olympian?

I'm friends with a woman who was on Bermuda's sailing team.

A couple of kids I grew up with won a silver in synchronized swimming and my swimteam coach in university went to the olympics.

I was on the committee that planned the celebration in Westfield NJ for Bob Clotworthy who won the gold for 3 meter springboard diving in Melbourne Australia in 1956.

My dad had a cousin in the Olympics in figure skating in 1952 and he won the bronze medal. He was beat out by Dick Button who would go on to become a sports broadcaster.

Yes, extended family.  1984 Olympics and Worlds.

Yes, my childhood swim coach was a medalist in the 1972 Olympics. A teammate on my college swim team swam in the Olympics for his home country in the 1980s.

Yes, I worked with a doctor who had been on the Olympic rowing team.
He was an odd bird.

Yes.

As a kid, my cross country ski instructors were Olympians.

In my swimming days, I trained with 5 Olympians and our coach was an Olympic coach.
Another member of the swim club was in the triathlon years later.

In university, I knew someone who was an Olympic paddler.

It is interesting that many Peas have a swimming connection!

When DD was in grade school she had the chance to meet Tara Lipinski immediately after she won Worlds and prior to the Olympics. She was with a group of local skaters who met Tara at the airport when she returned home. Tara was signing autographs and the next day there was a photo of Tara signing DD's flag on the front page of the sports section! Her classmates alerted her to it because I never read the sports page! I had the flag and the newspaper clipping framed.

My husband and I were at Bed Bath and Beyond and ran into Missy Franklin (swimmer)… we didn’t bother her as she was shopping with her friends. It was cool though. It was right at the time she was competing.

I had quite a few in my class on Olympic infrastructure and social policy. Some of them are there now. They all seemed like considerate down to earth people.

I was a track official at University of Florida before the 1976 Olympics. Our Florida Relays meet was a warmup so there were many Olympians at the meet. Our school team and track club had a lot of athletes from all over the world who were on the teams from their countries. One of the first people I met was Frank Shorter, 1972 marathon champion. Dwight Stones in the high jump, Marty Liquori in the 1500, Dave Roberts in the pole vault and many others trained there. Dave Roberts won bronze at the 1976 Olympics and I was officiating at the pole vault pit when he broke the world record at the Florida Relays. I didn't know them well. It was just a job but I spent a lot of time working at meets and practices.

We had a banquet after the Relays and Willie Davenport was the guest speaker. He had competed in the 110 m hurdles winning a gold medal in 1968 and a bronze in 1976. He decided that he wanted to go out with a group of us girls afterward rather than show up at a party hosted by the coaches so we ended up crashing the party because he was expected there. Very awkward.

Seeing these people perform up close, they're another species who are more graceful and perfect than the rest of us. It was magnificent.

Yes. My ex (DD's dad) grew up with and was best mates with a four-time Australian Olympian basketballer. My ex was in his wedding party when he got married, and we stayed with them several times when he was playing interstate. He also had (short) stints with the Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs. 

One of my former students is competing. I was their Kindergarten teacher. Pretty fun to see.