David Wilkie (swimmer)

David Andrew Wilkie (8 March 1954 – 22 May 2024) was a Scottish swimmer who was the Olympic 200m breaststroke champion in 1976, the first British swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal since Anita Lonsbrough in 1960, and the first British man to do so since Henry Taylor in 1908. He is the only person to have held British, Commonwealth, European, World and Olympic swimming titles at the same time. Wilkie, a member of the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame and the International Swimming Hall of Fame, has been described as Scotland's greatest and Britain's finest swimmer. Fellow Olympic breaststroke gold medallist Duncan Goodhew considered him an "extraordinary talent" and "one of Britain's greatest ever athletes".

Early days

David Wilkie's parents came from Aberdeen, Scotland, but were stationed in Colombo, Ceylon, when Wilkie was born on 8 March 1954. His family regularly patronised the open air Colombo Swimming Club, where Wilkie learned to swim.

When he was 11 years old his parents sent him to Scotland as a boarding school pupil at Daniel Stewart's College in Edinburgh, and, while a pupil there, he joined the Warrender Baths Club, one of Scotland's most successful swimming clubs. It was there that he began to train intensively and develop his specialist stroke, the breaststroke under one of Britain's leading coaches Frank Thomas, whom Wilkie credited with giving him the motivation to become a world class swimmer. In 1969, Wilkie was chosen to join the elite Scottish Training Squad organised by the Scottish Amateur Swimming Association. He wore a swim cap for that event during the Commonwealth Games, making him the first elite swimmer to wear one in a major competition. He won the World Championship for 200-metre breaststroke in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and broke the world record.

At the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, he won a gold in the 200-metre breaststroke, a second gold in the 200-metre individual medley, and a silver in the 100-metre breaststroke. From 1972 to 1976 he was unbeaten in 200-metre breaststroke races.

Olympic gold

However, it was after several years of further intensive training, while studying at the University of Miami on an athletic scholarship and competing for the university's Miami Hurricanes swimming and diving team, The head swimming coach there was Bill Diaz and his individual coach was Charlie Hodgson. British Sports personality of the year in 1975, in 1977 he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire, in 1982 he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame

After competitive swimming

Following his retirement a month after the Olympics, In 1985 he married his Swedish partner Helen Isacson with whom he had two children, Natasha and Adam, who were 23 and 20 in 2013, and Adam later became a swimmer. In 2009 he helped found Pet's Kitchen, a pet food company supplying British supermarkets.

In an interview with bunkered.co.uk in April 2016, Wilkie criticised the re-introduction of golf to the Olympic Games. He called Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player's claims that the Olympics would grow the game globally as "absolute bullshit", while he also said that players who did not stay in Rio de Janeiro for the duration of the Games could not be classed as true Olympians.

"The David Wilkie problem"

In 2017, BBC News reported that Wilkie (then aged 62) "was accused of swimming too fast" in his local Virgin Active swimming pool. Wilkie quit his Virgin Active membership and joined another gym. Outdoor Swimmer magazine subsequently coined the phrase "the David Wilkie problem", meaning "the issue of how swimming pools manage their facilities to provide swimmers with a wide range of abilities, aspirations and expectations the best possible experience. The fact that 'lane rage' exists suggests that currently, they don't do a very good job of it."

Death

Wilkie died of cancer on 22 May 2024, at the age of 70.

Books

David Wilkie by David Wilkie, Pat Besford and Tommy Long, Kemps, 1976;
Winning with Wilkie: A Guide to Better Swimming by David Wilkie and Athole Still, Stanley Paul, 1977. .
Splash!: Swimming with Wilkie by David Wilkie and Kelvin Juba, Hutchinson, 1982. .
The Handbook of Swimming by David Wilkie and Kelvin Juba, Pelham, 1986. .