Let's Talk About Pecs Trivia Quiz

Answer: Johnny Weissmuller

At the age of eleven, Weissmuller lied about his age in order to join the YMCA. At that early age, he was already an impressive athlete, excelling at swimming, running and high jump. He started swimming competitively in 1921, at the age of seventeen. Three years later, he swam at his first Olympic Games, winning three gold medals. He also won a bronze medal in team water polo. In 1928 he represented the United States at another Olympics, earning two gold medals. In 1927 he set a record in the one hundred meter freestyle race and his record stood for seventeen years.

He retired from swimming with an unbeaten amateur record and was named the greatest swimmer of the first half of the twentieth century by the Associated Press. After retiring, he starred in twelve films as Tarzan and in sixteen films as Jungle Jim. He died in 1984 and as his coffin was being lowered into the ground, his famous Tarzan yell was played three times, per his request.

Answer: Janet Evans

Evans started swimming early, setting national age records at the age of eleven. She swam through high school and while at Stanford University. While at college, she won the Honda Sports Award for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding female college swimmer for 1988-1989. In 1989 she was named the top amateur athlete in the USA, earning the James E. Sullivan Award. She was named the Female World Swimmer of the Year in 1987, 1989 and 1990 by "Swimming World Magazine." She won three gold medals at the Seoul Olympics and it is there that she earned the nickname "Miss Perpetual Motion." Her 800-meter freestyle record of 8:16:22 was one of the longest records set in swimming and stood through several Olympics. She was undefeated in every 400, 800, and 1500-meter freestyle swimming event for over five years!

She has a distinctive windmill style of swimming and tremendous cardio-respiratory reserves. Despite being smaller and shorter than many competitors, she was incredibly successful against bigger and seemingly stronger athletes.

Answer: Victor Davis

This incredibly talented Canadian swimmer was the seventeen times national champion in the 100-meter breaststroke event. He was the fourteen times national champion at the 200-meter breaststroke event. He won one gold and two silver medals at the 1984 Olympics and a silver at Seoul in 1988. He was named Swimming Canada's Athlete of the Year three times, is a member of the Order of Canada and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1994.

In 1989 Davis was hit by a car and suffered a severe skull fracture. He died two days after being hit. A Victor Davis Memorial Fund was set up to help up and coming young Canadian swimmers and in 2008, thirteen recipients of the fund participated in the Summer Olympics.

Answer: Katy Sexton

In 1998, fifteen year old Sexton joined the Great Britain swimming team at the World Championships in Australia, becoming the youngest member of that team. That same year, she won a gold medal for in the 200-meter backstroke event at the Commonwealth Games. In 2003 she won a gold medal at the World Championships in the 200-meter backstroke event. She became the first British swimmer to earn a World Championship gold medal in a swimming event.

In 2011 she was named an ambassador for the Swimming Teachers Association and has participated as a patron for the youth counselling service Off the Record. Still swimming as a master, in 2014 she broke two British records, one in the 50-meter freestyle event and one in the 50-meter butterfly event.

Answer: Ian Thorpe

This absolutely dominant Australian swimmer made his international debut at the Pan Pacific Championships in Japan in 1997, winning two silver medals. He was only fourteen years old at the time. The following year he won two gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships and four gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. His success continued through to the 2000 Summer Olympics where he won five medals. He won three gold and two silver, becoming the most successful athlete at the games. He was named Swimmer of the Year by Swimming Australia.

He won six gold medals at the 2001 World Championships, six gold and a silver medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and four medals at the 2004 Summer Olympics. With the medals he won at those games, he became the only person to medal in the 100-200-400 combination in Olympic history. He was given the nickname "Thorpedo" due to his speed.

Answer: Zhang Yufei

This phenomenal athlete started swimming at the tender age of three years old, encouraged and coached by her mother. At the age of fourteen, she beat the 2008 Olympic Gold medalist Liu Zige, at the 200-meter butterfly. She's won multiple medals at events around the world, including at the Asian Games, World Championships and Youth Olympic Games.

She won four medals at the 2020 Summer Olympics; two gold and two silver. In July 2021, at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, she broke the World and Olympic record for the 200-meter butterfly, with a time of 2.03.86.

Answer: Frederick Bousquet

Bousquet has set records in both the 50-meter freestyle short course and long course events. He also won a silver and a bronze medal at the 2009 World Championships. In 2010 he swam the 50-meter freestyle in the fourth fastest time in history, in a blazing 18.67 seconds.

Despite swimming some incredibly fast times, Bousquet is not without controversy. When he swam his time of 20.94 in the 50-meter freestyle long course at the French championships, he set a world record. The record however, was not verified right away as Bousquet had used a banned, performance-enhancing suit. In October 2010, he was suspended for two months for using a banned substance.

Answer: Kristin Otto

Otto was born in East Germany in 1966. During her swimming career, she became the first woman to swim the 100-meter backstroke in under one minute. She won a gold medal at the 1983 World Aquatics Championships and was expected to win medals at the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Those games were boycotted by Eastern Block countries and so Otto had to wait until 1988 to try and earn her Olympic medals. In Seoul in 1988, she won an incredible six gold medals, becoming the first female swimmer to do so. At those games, she set Olympic records in the 50-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly events.

Her career was dogged by accusations of doping. Although other East German athletes have admitted that they participated in doping, Otto has maintained that she didn't (or was never aware if she did.)

Answer: Bruno Fratus

Yes you read the question correctly. Fratus has swum the fifty-meter freestyle distance faster than 22 seconds an incredible ninety times. He has also won multiple medals at multiple events. He won a bronze medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, he has four World Championship medals from between 2015 and 2019. He has several medals from Pan American Games, including two gold in 2011 and two more gold in 2019.

When he won his Olympic bronze medal, he became the oldest swimmer to win their first Olympic medal. He participated in both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic games without medalling and his joyous third place celebration from the 2020 Olympic Games went viral online.

Answer: Mayumi Narita

This Japanese swimmer was born in 1970 and has used a wheelchair since the age of thirteen. In 1994, she was in a car accident and left a quadriplegic. That hasn't stopped her from absolutely dominating in the sport.

At the 1996 Paralympic Games she won two gold medals, two silver medals and a bronze medal. At the 2000 summer Paralympic Games she not only won six gold medals but also set five world records. At the 2004 summer Paralympic Games, she won seven gold medals, a bronze medal and set another six world records and seven Paralympic records. In 2005 she was named the Best Female Athlete by the International Paralympic Committee. If you're counting Paralympic medals, that's twenty total medals, including fifteen gold!