At the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, Murray Rose won 3 Gold medals (400 Free, 1500 Free, & 800 FR). He was just 17 years old and used a 2 and 4 beat kick — something that hadn’t yet been done. Rose was also an ambassador of a strange diet at the time. Something called: vegetarian. When asked by Grouco Marx how important he thought his vegetarian diet was to his success, Rose answered, “Oh, I think it’s very important.”
“He has become, in a very short time, an All-Australian Boy among those looking for a hero Down Under. With his clean-cut good looks, his status there is comparable here to that of Mickey Mantle, whom Rose has never heard of.” – Gay Talese, New York Times, July 1957
Murray went on to swim for the University of Southern California and defended his 400 Free Olympic title in 1960 in Rome, Italy. He was unable to compete in Tokyo in 1964 because he skipped Australian OT’s because he was filming a movie. Throughout his career, he broke 15 world records.
If you have 5 minutes, this tribute to Murray Rose from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is AWESOME.