Rick Carey

Rick Carey

Personal information
Full name	Richard John Carey
Nationality	United States
Born	March 13, 1963 (1963-03-13) Mount Kisco, New York
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	82 kilograms (180 lb)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Stroke(s)	Backstroke
College team	University of Texas
Medal record Men’s swimming Competitor for the United States Olympic Games Gold 1984 Los Angeles 100 m backstroke Gold 1984 Los Angeles 200 m backstroke Gold 1984 Los Angeles 4x100 m medley World Championships (LC) Gold 1982 Guayaquil 200 m backstroke Gold 1982 Guayaquil 4x100 m medley Silver 1982 Guayaquil 100 m backstroke Pan Pacific Games Gold 1985 Tokyo 100 m backstroke Gold 1985 Tokyo 200 m backstroke Gold 1985 Tokyo 4x100 m medley Pan American Games Gold 1983 Caracas 100 m backstroke Gold 1983 Caracas 200 m backstroke Gold 1983 Caracas 4x100 m medley

Richard ("Rick") John Carey (born March 13, 1963) is a former American swimmer who specialized in the backstroke. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, he won three gold medals. He broke nine world records, five individually, and also was a double world champion. He was named as the World Swimmer of the Year in 1983 by Swimming World magazine.

Career

Carey was selected to make his international debut at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but had to withdraw when the American team boycotted the Olympics due to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. In 1981 Carey was the American champion in both the 100 m and 200 m backstroke, setting a national record in the latter, after moving to the University of Texas at Austin to train under Eddie Reese. In 1982 he collected gold in the 200 m backstroke and 4x100 m medley relay, and silver in the 100m backstroke at the World Championships in Guayaguil, Ecuador.

In 1983, Carey set world records of 55.38 s in the 100 m and 1:58.93 s in the 200 m backstroke, breaking marks set in 1976 by John Naber. At the Pan American Games that year in Caracas, Venezuela, he lowered the 100 m record to 55.19 s and he also won the 200 m event. He also broke the world record in the 4x100m medley relay, along with Steve Lundquist, Matt Gribble and Rowdy Gaines, all of whom were world record holders in their respective disciplines. This earned him the World Swimmer of the Year award.

At the 1984 Summer Olympics, he won both backstroke events and again was part of the winning medley relay team. Carey created a minor controversy after his victory in the 200m backstroke, when despite winning Olympic gold, he appeared noticeably unhappy about having failed to break his own world record time. He later apologized and responded much more positively to his 100m win, despite the fact that it too fell short of his own world record. He continued to win events at a national level thereafter, retiring in 1986.

Carey now works for UBS Bank in London.^{[citation needed]}

In 1993, he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

External links

• Rick Carey biography and Olympic results, from http://www.sports-reference.com/.

Records
Preceded by John Naber	Men's 100 metre backstroke world record holder (long course) August 6, 1983 – March 15, 1988	Succeeded by Igor Polyansky
Preceded by John Naber	Men's 200 metre backstroke world record holder (long course) August 3, 1983 – August 21, 1984	Succeeded by Sergei Zabolotnov
Awards
Preceded by Vladimir Salnikov	World Swimmer of the Year 1983	Succeeded by Alex Baumann