Semyon Viktorovich Belits-Geiman (Russian: Семён Викторович Белиц-Гейман; born 16 February 1945) is a former Soviet freestyle swimmer.[1] He set a world record in the 800 m freestyle, and won two Olympic medals.

Semyon Belits-Geiman

Semyon Belits-Geiman in 1966
Personal information
Full name	Semyon Viktorovich Belits-Geiman
Nationality	Soviet
Born	(1945-02-16) 16 February 1945 (age 77) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Weight	161 lb (73 kg)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Freestyle
Club	Dynamo Moscow
Medal record Representing the  Soviet Union Olympic Games 1968 Mexico City 4×100 m freestyle 1968 Mexico City 4×200 m freestyle European Championships 1966 Utrecht 1,500 m freestyle 1966 Utrecht 4×200 m freestyle 1966 Utrecht 400 m freestyle Summer Universiade 1965 Budapest 400 m freestyle 1965 Budapest 1,500 m freestyle 1965 Budapest 4×100 m freestyle 1965 Budapest 4×200 m freestyle 1967 Tokyo 1,500 m freestyle

Early life

Belits-Geiman is Jewish and was born in Moscow,[2][3][4] where he attended the Transport Engineering Institute,[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 when he was eight.[3] He was affiliated with the Moscow club Dynamo, and became a member of the Soviet swimming team in 1962.[3][7] He competed at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, and finished in seventh place in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay and eighth in the 400 meter freestyle.[7]

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

In 1966, he won the gold medal against three of the best American freestyle swimmers in a US vs USSR competition in Moscow.[3] That year at the European championships, he won gold medals in the 1,500 m freestyle (16:58.5) and 4 × 200 m freestyle relay (8:00.2) and a silver medal in the 400 m 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 8 March 1966, he set a world record in the 800 m freestyle, at 8:47.4, in Budapest.[1][10][11][12] That was 4.1 seconds faster than the former record set by Australian Murray Rose in 1962.[5][13]

At the 1967 Universiade in Tokyo, he won a silver medal in the 1,500 m freestyle, behind American Mike Burton.[8]

He won a silver medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City in the 4×100 freestyle relay (3:34.2), swimming the lead leg, and a bronze medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay (8:01.6), swimming the second leg.[1][2][3] In the 4 × 200 m relay, one of his teammates was Vladimir Bure.[3] He also swam two individual freestyle events, finishing seventh in the 200 m freestyle, and ninth in the 400 m race.[3] He broke 67 Soviet national freestyle records.[3] In 1974, he was named president of the Moscow Swim Federation and vice president of the Soviet Union Federation.[3]

Post-swimming career

Later in his life he competed in cross-country skiing and speed skating, and became a Soviet Master of Sport and coach in both disciplines.[1][3]

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

Accolades

In 2017, he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[16]

Personal

He met his wife, Russian ice dancing coach and former competitive ice dancer Natalia Dubova, when he covered one of her competitions as a sportswriter.[14][15] In 1999, they moved to Stamford, Connecticut.[17]

See also

• List of select Jewish swimmers
• World record progression 800 metres freestyle

References

External links

• USSR Swimming profile
• The Sports profile

На других языках

[it] Semën Belic-Gejman

[ru] Белиц-Гейман, Семён Викторович