Adolph Kiefer, the 100-meter backstroke champion at the 1936 Berlin Games, died on May 5, 2017 at the age of 98.
He was America’s oldest living Olympic champion.
Kiefer broke 23 records in all, including every backstroke record.
Kiefer helped develop a curriculum for teaching sailors to swim during WW2, as well as the “victory backstroke,” which is credited with saving thousands of lives.
Adolph Kiefer, winner of the 1936 Olympic gold medal for the men’s 100m backstroke, raises his arms before a medal ceremony during the US Olympic swimming trials in Omaha, Nebraska, in June 2012.
Adolph and Joyce Kiefer built Kiefer Swim, a swimming equipment company that he is said to have joked sold “everything but the water.”
They developed the nylon swimsuit, and the first non-turbulent racing lane, which helped to level the playing field by making it harder for swimmers to “ride the wake” of a swimmer in another lane.
Kiefer became the first man to break the one-minute mark in the 100-yard backstroke while competing as a 16-year-old in the Illinois High School Championships of 1935.
He swam the distance in 59.8 seconds.
His 1936 Illinois state championship backstroke time of 58.5 seconds was the Illinois state high-school record until 1960. On April 6, 1940 Kiefer set another record, swimming the 100-yard backstroke in 57.9 seconds.
Kiefer broke twenty-three records after breaking the one-minute backstroke mark. Kiefer went on to set a world record for 100-meter backstroke of 1:04.8 on January 18, 1936, at Brennan Pools in Detroit, Michigan.
After establishing his learn-to-swim programs at Bainbridge, Kiefer established the company Adolph Kiefer & Associates, based out of Chicago. He would run the business until 2014.
In addition to creating the first nylon suits and non-turbulent lane lines, Kiefer also became the first to distribute Dura-Flex Diving Boards.
Dura-Flex is now the only competitive diving board used world-wide.
Over the years, Adolph Kiefer & Company became the official supplier to the USA Olympic Team and the Olympic Games.
Keifer was a Donor Swimming member of the inaugural class inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965.
In 2007, USA Swimming presented Kiefer with a gold medal from the 1936 Olympic Games, to replace the one that had been stolen shortly after he returned from Berlin 71 years ago.
The medal was specially cast from the original mold for the occasion by the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
He was nominated for a US Medal of Freedom.
Born June 27, 1918, he was the oldest living U.S. Olympic gold medalist in any sport and the only living gold medalist from the 1936 Olympic Games.
