Victoria Draves

Victoria "Vicki" Draves (born: Victoria Manalo ; born December 31, 1924 in San Francisco , California , † April 11, 2010 in Palm Springs , California) was an American diver . As the first female water diver, she was able to win both artificial diving and diving in the same Olympic Games in 1948.

Career

Vicki Draves was born one of two twin daughters to a Filipino and an Englishwoman. She started diving when she was sixteen, the main obstacle being the San Francisco race regulations: Filipinos were not allowed to train in swimming clubs. So she began her career under the name Victoria Taylor, her mother's maiden name. She changed swimming clubs twice and finally got to coach Lyle Draves in Oakland. At the US Indoor Championships in 1945, three students from Lyle Draves took the first three places with Vicki Manalo in second place behind Zoe-Ann Olsen . Lyle Draves moved to Los Angeles in 1945, Vicki Manalo followed him and finished second and third at the US championships in 1945. After the war ended, she married her coach and moved permanently to the Los Angeles Athletic Club .

Vicki Draves won the US championship title from 1946 to 1948 from the tower and also won from the three-meter board in 1948. Although she won the elimination competitions for the American Olympic selection neither from the board nor from the tower, she was able to qualify in both disciplines for the 1948 Olympic Games in London. In artificial jumping there was a very close decision between Zoe-Ann Olsen and Vicki Draves on August 3, 1948, Draves finally won by half a point, seven points behind Olsen was the third American Patricia Elsener . Three days later, Draves also won the high diving with a half point lead over Elsener. This made Draves the first female water diver to win both competitions at the same Olympic Games.

After the Olympics, Draves began a professional career, including appearing on Buster Crabbe shows . In 1950 she retired and devoted herself to her family, Vicki and Lyle Draves had four sons. In 1969 she was inducted into the hall of fame of international swimming .

Honors

• On August 3, 2020 Draves was with a Google - Doodle honored.

literature

• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. Chronicle II. London 1948 - Tokyo 1964. Sportverlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-328-00740-7 .

Web links

• Vicki Draves in the International Swimming Hall of Fame (English)
• Victoria Draves in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Dwight Chapin: Vicki Draves / Pioneer Olympian made quite a splash / Diver became celebrity after 1948 Games. In: San Francisco Chronicle . March 3, 2002, accessed May 10, 2014 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In honor of Vicki Draves. August 3, 2020, accessed August 20, 2020 .