Remember that seventeen-year-old girl from Placentia, California who won three gold medals in distance swimming at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and set a new record in the 400-meter freestyle in the process? And how she had already set records in 400-meter, 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle swimming a year earlier? Well, she turns fifty years old today. And if it makes you yourself feel old that Janet Evans has reached the half-century mark, here's some good news - she's still cute!
She's still active in the Olympic movement, having traveled all over the world to promote it, and she was part of the effort to get the Games back in Los Angeles. The picture below is from the September 2017 Olympics conference in Lima, Peru, where LA won the bid for 2028. She is now the chief athlete officer for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Though she's seen her world and Olympic records eventually get broken - with new ones in her events constantly being set by her fellow American Katie Ledecky, a swimmer so phenomenal she sets a record in the heat and breaks it in the final - Janet Evans remains a legend in swimming and an inspiration to girls and women everywhere.
And she's still my Olympic heartthrob. (Just don't tell her husband that! 😉)
Happy birthday, Janet. 😊
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