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| Full name | Catherine Northcutt Ball Condon | ||||||||||||||
| Nationality |  United States | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Breaststroke, individual medley | ||||||||||||||
| Club | J.E.T.S. | ||||||||||||||
| College team | University of Florida | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Catherine Northcutt "Catie" Ball Condon (born September 30, 1951) is a former American international swimmer who won a gold medal during the 1968 Summer Olympics. Ball is remembered as a teenage star who was the dominant female breaststroke swimmer of her generation.
Catie Ball was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1951. She swam for the J.E.T.S. swim team in Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) competition as a teenager. Condon attended Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville, and then swam for the Lee Generals swim team.
At the Mexico City Olympic Games in 1968, Ball was the world record holder in all four distances of the breaststroke, but she arrived at the Olympics with a case of influenza. She was too ill to swim in the qualifying heats of the 200-meter breaststroke event, and finished fifth in the 100-meter breaststroke. Ball won her only gold medal in the 400-meter medley relay, swimming the breaststroke leg of the four-person relay.
After the Olympics, Ball received a special scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, but effectively dropped out of competition swimming because there were no women's college swim teams at the time and because of her desire to lead a more "normal" life. As an undergraduate senior at the University of Florida, she was hired to coach the Florida Gators swimming & diving team in Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) competition during the 1972–1973 school year. In their first year of intercollegiate competition, Ball's Lady Gator swimmers were undefeated in dual meets and placed second in the AIAW national championships during her single-season tenure.
Ball was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1976, and the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.
Ball currently resides in Pensacola, Florida. In the time since retiring from competition swimming at the age of 17, she has been a junior swim coach, kindergarten teacher, housewife and interior decorator. She and her husband Tom Condon have three children and a grandchild.
See also
References
- ^ Sports Reference, Olympic Sports, Catie Ball. Retrieved April 14, 2010.
- International Swimming Hall of Fame, Honorees, Catie Ball (USA). Retrieved July 13, 2010.
- ^ Jamie Secola, "Hall of Fame induction cements Ball-Condon's swimming legacy," Pensacola News-Journal (July 4, 2010). Retrieved July 13, 2010.
