| Semyon Belits-Geiman | |
| Fullname: | Semyon Viktorovich Belits-Geiman |
| Nationality: | Soviet |
| Strokes: | Freestyle |
| Club: | Dynamo Moscow |
| Birth Date: | 16 February 1945 |
| Birth Place: | Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Weight: | 161lb |
| Show-Medals: | yes |
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.
Belits-Geiman is Jewish and was born in Moscow,[2] [3] where he attended the Transport Engineering Institute,[4] studied journalism, and worked as a journalist for the magazines Sports Life in Russia and Soviet Sport.[5]
Belits-Geiman began swimming when he was eight.[6] He was affiliated with the Moscow club Dynamo, and became a member of the Soviet swimming team in 1962.[6] [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.[6] In 1965, his time in the 1,500 m was the second-fastest in the world (17:01.90).[6] [8]
In 1966, he won the gold medal against three of the best American freestyle swimmers in a US vs USSR competition in Moscow.[6] 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).[6] [9] In 1966, he was ranked number three in the world in the 1,500-meter freestyle.[6]
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.[4] [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] [6] In the 4 × 200 m relay, one of his teammates was Vladimir Bure.[6] He also swam two individual freestyle events, finishing seventh in the 200 m freestyle, and ninth in the 400 m race.[6] He broke 67 Soviet national freestyle records.[6] In 1974, he was named president of the Moscow Swim Federation and vice president of the Soviet Union Federation.[6]
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] [6]
Beginning in the early 1980s, he developed training programs for figure skaters.[6] [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]
In 2017, he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[16]
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]