Дэвид Уилкие: Шотландияның үздік жүзушісінің өмірі мен жетістіктері

Scottish swimmer

David Andrew Wilkie (born 8 March 1954) is a Scottish former competitive swimmer who was Olympic and Commonwealth Games champion in the 1970s. He is the only person to have held British, American, Commonwealth, European, world and Olympic swimming titles at the same time and was the first British swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal since Anita Lonsbrough in 1960. He is a member of the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame, the International Swimming Hall of Fame, has been described as Scotland's greatest swimmer and Britain's finest swimmer.

David Wilkie's parents came from Aberdeen, Scotland, but were stationed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, when Wilkie was born on 8 March 1954. His family regularly patronised the open air Colombo Swimming Club where Wilkie learned to swim. At 11 years old his parents sent him back to Scotland as a boarding school pupil at Daniel Stewart's College in Edinburgh, and, while a student there, he joined the Warrender Baths Club, one of Scotland's most successful swimming clubs. It was there that he began to train intensively and develop his specialist stroke, the breaststroke under one of Britain's leading coaches Frank Thomas, whom Wilkie credited with giving him the motivation to become a world class swimmer. In 1969, Wilkie was chosen to join the elite Scottish Training Squad organised by the Scottish Amateur Swimming Association. He wore a swim cap for that event during the commonwealth games, making him the first elite swimmer to wear one in a major competition. He won the World Championship for 200 metre breaststroke in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and broke the world record. At the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, he won a gold in the 200 metre breaststroke, a second gold in the 200 metre individual medley, and a silver in the 100 metre breaststroke. From 1972 to 1976 he was unbeaten in 200 metre breaststroke races.

However, it was after several years of further intensive training, while studying at the University of Miami on an athletic scholarship and competing for the university's Miami Hurricanes swimming and diving team, The head swimming coach there was Bill Diaz and his individual coach was Charlie Hodgson. British Sports personality of the year in 1975, in 1977 he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire, in 1982 he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame

Since his retirement, Wilkie remained active in the world of swimming, involved in swimming aids and technology. He was said to be the first swimmer to wear a head cap and goggles together in competition to improve the streamline effect within the water In 1985 he met his Swedish partner Helen Isacson with whom he had two children, Natasha and Adam who were 23 and 20 in 2013. In 2009 he helped found Pet's Kitchen, a pet food company supplying British supermarkets. In an interview with bunkered. co. uk in April 2016, Wilkie criticised the re introduction of golf to the Olympic Games. He called Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player's claims that the Olympics would grow the game globally as 'absolute bullshit', while he also said that players who do not stay in Rio de Janeiro for the duration of the Games can not be classed as true Olympians.

In 2017, BBC News reported that Wilkie (then aged 62) "was accused of swimming too fast " in his local Virgin Active swimming pool. Wilkie quit his Virgin Active membership and joined another gym. Outdoor Swimmer magazine subsequently coined the phrase 'the David Wilkie problem', meaning "the issue of how swimming pools manage their facilities to provide swimmers with a wide range of abilities, aspirations and expectations the best possible experience. The fact that 'lane rage' exists suggests that currently, they don't do a very good job of it."