Paula Pope

Paula Pope (left) at the award ceremony in art jumping in Rome in 1960

Paula Jean Pope , born Paula Jean Myers , (born November 11, 1934 in Lackawanna , Erie County , New York , † June 9, 1995 in Ventura , California ) was an American diver who won medals at three Olympic Games.

She won her first Olympic medal as Paula Myers in high diving at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki. With silver behind Patricia McCormick and in front of Juno Irwin , she contributed to the triple success of the jumpers from the United States. These three jumpers also won all three medals from the tower at the Olympic Games in 1956 . McCormick won ahead of Irwin and Myers.

In 1957, after McCormick's resignation, she won all five AAU championship titles , and in total she won eleven AAU championship titles. In 1958 she married Karl Pope. At the Pan American Games in 1959, Pope won the competitions in jumping and diving. At the 1960 Olympic Games , she was to continue the winning streak of the US jumpers who had won all gold medals from both the board and the tower since 1924. But Pope couldn't beat the young Ingrid Krämer from Dresden, Pope won both silver medals behind Krämer.

In 1957 she graduated from the University of Southern California . After her career, she worked as a trainer at Samuel Lee's swimming school . Later she and her husband ran a club for racquetball , tennis and swimming in Ojai . In 1979 she was inducted into the international swimming pool 's hall of fame .

literature

• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. The Chronicle II. London 1948 - Tokyo 1964. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-328-00740-7 .
• Bill Mallon / Ian Buchanan: Quest for Gold . New York City 1984 ISBN 0-88011-217-4

Web links

Commons : Paula Pope  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Paula Pope in the International Swimming Hall of Fame (English)
• Paula Pope in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )