SHANE GOULD OF AUSTRALIA

Undated: Swimmer Shane Gould of Australia in action at the 1972 Olympics in Munch, Germany. Gould reached her Everest in swimming at exactly the right time, winning three gold medals at the Munich Olympics Games and setting world records in each. Moreover she showed the fibre to overcome the disappointment of defeat: in those Games she lost her second final, the 100 metres free style, but won the 400 metres free style the following day. Altogether, she swam twelve races in eight days. All this before her sixteenth birthday, by which time she was becoming disenchanted with the training demands the sport made to maintain her high positon. She retired less than a year later. Her career must be among the most successful and shortest in any sport for her international competition was crammed into less than three years. Mandatory Credit: Tony Duffy/Allsport