Semyon Belits-Geiman

Semyon Belits-Geiman
Personal information
Full name Semyon Viktorovich Belits-Geiman
Nationality Soviet
Born February 16, 1945 (1945-02-16) (age 67)
Moscow
Height 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m)
Weight 161 pounds (73 kg)
Sport
Sport Swimming
Stroke(s) Freestyle
Club Dynamo Moskva
Medal record
Men’s swimming
Competitor for the  Soviet Union
Olympic Games
Silver 1968 Mexico City 4×100 m freestyle
Bronze 1968 Mexico City 4×200 m freestyle
European Championships (LC)
Gold 1966 Utrecht 1,500 m freestyle
Gold 1966 Utrecht 4×200 m freestyle
Silver 1966 Utrecht 400 m freestyle
Summer Universiade
Gold 1965 Budapest 400 m freestyle
Silver 1965 Budapest 1,500 m freestyle
Silver 1965 Budapest 4×100 m freestyle
Silver 1965 Budapest 4×200 m freestyle
Silver 1967 Tokyo 1,500 m freestyle

Semyon Viktorovich Belits-Geiman (born February 16, 1945) is a former Soviet freestyle swimmer.[1] He set a world record in the 800-meter freestyle, and won two Olympic medals.

Contents

Early life

Belits-Geiman is Jewish, and was born in Moscow.[2][3][4] He attended the Transport Engineering Institute in Moscow,[5] studied journalism, and worked as a journalist for the magazines Sports Life in Russia and Soviet Sport.[6]

Swimming career

Belits-Geiman began swimming at the age of eight.[3] He was affiliated with the Moscow club Dynamo Moskva, and became a member of the Soviet National Swim Team in 1962.[3][7]

Belits-Geiman competed for the Soviet Union in swimming at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, but did not medal.[7] He was part of the Soviet 4x200-meter freestyle relay which finished seventh, and swam in the 400-meter freestyle, finishing eighth.[3]

At the 1965 University Games swimming competition, he won the gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle, and three silver medals in the 1,500-meter and relay races.[3] In 1965, his time in the 1,500 meter was the second-fastest in the world (17:01.90).[3][8]

In 1966, he won the gold medal in a special US-USSR competition in Moscow against the three best American freestyle swimmers.[3] That year at the European Championships, he also won the gold medal in the 1,500-meter freestyle (16:58.5) and was part of the gold-medal-winning Soviet team in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay (8:00.2), where he also won a silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle (4:13.2; behind German Frank Wiegand, and ahead of Frenchman Alain Mosconi).[3][9] In 1966, he was ranked number three in the world in the 1,500-meter freestyle.[3]

On March 8, 1966, he set a world record in the 800-meter freestyle, at 8:47.4, in Budapest.[1][10][11][12] That broke the former world record of 8:51.5 by 4.1 seconds, set by Australian Murray Rose in 1962.[5][13]

At the 1967 University Games swimming competition in Tokyo, he won a silver medal in the 1,500-meter freestyle, behind American Mike Burton.[8]

He won a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City in the 4x100 freestyle team relay (3:34.2), swimming the lead leg, and a bronze medal in the 4x200 freestyle relay (8:01.6), swimming the second leg.[1][2][3] In the 4x200 relay, one of his teammates was Vladimir Bure.[3] He also swam two individual freestyle events, finishing seventh in the 200-meter freestyle, and ninth in the 400-meter race.[3]

By 1972, he had broken 67 Soviet national freestyle records.[3] At 29 years of age, he became the youngest-ever president of the Moscow Swim Federation and vice president of the Soviet Union Federation.[3]

Post-swimming career

Later in his life he became a champion cross-country skier and speed skater, and a Soviet Master of Sport and coach in each of them.[1][3]

Beginning in the early 1980s, he developed physical and psychological training programs for figure skaters.[3][14] He created a special fitness program for skaters to increase their coordination and flexibility, which was used by Australian ice dancing champions Natalie Buck and Trent Nelson-Bond in the early 2000s.[15]

Personal

He met his wife, Russian ice dancing coach and former competitive ice dancer Natalia Dubova, when he came to one of her competitions as a sportswriter.[14][15] In 1999, they moved to Stamford, Connecticut.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Paul Taylor (2004). Jews and the Olympic Games: the clash between sport and politics: with a complete review of Jewish Olympic medalists. Sussex Academic Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=tGcPDXOjxMoC&pg=PA225&dq=Semyon+Belits-Geiman&hl=en&ei=Opk3TuTtFsXV0QH1pLm1Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Semyon%20Belits-Geiman&f=false. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  2. ^ a b Bob Wechsler (2008). Day by day in Jewish sports history. http://books.google.com/books?id=dAq4TGQsWwwC&pg=PA291&dq=Semyon+Belits-Geiman&hl=en&ei=Opk3TuTtFsXV0QH1pLm1Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Semyon%20Belits-Geiman&f=false. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Belits-Geiman, Semyon". Jewsinsports.org. http://www.jewsinsports.org/Olympics.asp?sport=olympics&ID=345. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  4. ^ "Jewish Olympic Medalists". Jewishsports.net. http://www.jewishsports.net/medalists.htm. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  5. ^ a b "A Roundup Of The Sports Information Of The Week". Sports Illustrated. August 15, 1966. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1078880/2/index.htm. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  6. ^ "Белиц-Гейман Семен". Ussr-swimming.ru. http://www.ussr-swimming.ru/bio/belits-geiman/belits-geiman.htm. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  7. ^ a b "Semyon Belits-Geyman Biography and Olympic Results". Sports-reference.com. http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/be/semyon-belits-geyman-1.html. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  8. ^ a b Ralph Hickok (January 16, 2010). "World University Games Men's Swimming Medalists". HickokSports.com. http://www.hickoksports.com/history/univmswim.shtml. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  9. ^ Todor Krastev (December 18, 2010). "Swimming 11th European Championship 1966 Utrecht (NED)". Todor66.com. http://www.todor66.com/swimming/Europe/1966/index.html. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  10. ^ "Suited for Swimming". Boys' Life. July 1967. http://books.google.com/books?id=t3GjIj_RU5AC&pg=PA56&dq=Geiman+swimmer&hl=en&ei=2Zo3TqWuDYy00AHgwrn-Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  11. ^ "Aussie Bests Swim Mark". Spokane Daily Chronicle. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KVdYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tfcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4810,88880&dq=geiman+world-record+800&hl=en. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  12. ^ "Burton Sets 2 World Marks". The Telegraph-Herald. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=EghRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9L8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=4047,4182754&dq=geiman+world-record+800&hl=en. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  13. ^ "Rose's Swim Record Falls to Russian". The Sydney Morning Herald. August 4, 1966. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cCRZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SucDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2383,577151&dq=belits-geiman&hl=en. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  14. ^ a b Judy Wells (April 30, 2000). "Famed skating coach takes to the ice with local talent". The Florida Times-Union. http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/043000/dss_2945594.html. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  15. ^ a b "Australian Dancers Flourish Under Dubova". Golden Skate. November 1, 2003. http://www.goldenskate.com/2003/11/australian-dancers-flourish-under-dubova/. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 
  16. ^ Harold Davis (September 20, 2009). "From Russia with love: Olympic champ and wife still live sporting life in Stamford". Connecticut Post. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CTPB&p_theme=ctpb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=12ADD612A67AEBF0&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved August 2, 2011. 

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