Kristy Kowal

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Medal record
Kristy Kowal
Women's Swimming
Competitor for the United States
Olympic Games
Silver	2000 Sydney	200 m Breastroke
World Championships (LC)
Gold	1998 Perth	100m Breaststroke
Gold	1998 Perth	4x100m Medley
Silver	1998 Perth	200m Breaststroke
Silver	2001 Fukuoka	50 m Breastroke
Pan Pacific Championships
Gold	1997 Fukuoka	4x100m Medley
Bronze	1997 Fukuoka	100m Breaststroke

Kristina ("Kristy") Ann Kowal (born on October 9, 1978 in Reading, Pennsylvania) is an international top swimmer from the United States, who won the silver medal in the 200m breaststroke at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. In the 2000 Olympics, she was second and touched out teammate Amanda Beard.

Kowal began swimming primarily to be with her friends. She was never very fast as a young child and was on the "C" team for years. What motivated her to move to a higher group was the fact that most of her friends were on the "A" team. Between the summer of her 8th and 9th grade years, Kowal grew nearly 6 inches, which helped her swimming immensely. Kowal led her college, the University of Georgia (UGA), to three NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. In 2000, she was named NCAA Woman of the Year and she was a recipient of the Today's Top VIII Award as a member of the Class of 2001, which honors eight senior student-athletes each year. She graduated from UGA in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science in Education (B.S.Ed). She was a 1996 graduate of Wilson High School, located in West Lawn, PA. Wilson has produced two other notable world class athletes Kerry Collins (NFL) and John Gilmore (NFL), both of which played in the Super Bowl.

Kowal became a member of the United States Swimming Team in 1995. She hadn't swum year-round until the spring of 1995 and that was just a couple months before making the 1995 Pan Pac Team, which was the first international team she had been on. Kowal enjoys reading, hiking, and biking.

She is now an elementary teacher in Pennsylvania.(2007)