Kieren Perkins

Kieren John Perkins (born 14 August 1973) is an Australian former freestyle swimmer. He specialised in the 1500-metre freestyle and won successive Olympic gold medals in this event in the 1990s. He won his first at the 1992 Olympics which he won in world record time and then at the 1996 Olympics when he defended his title. In total he won four Olympic medals.

Early life

Perkins was born in Brisbane, Queensland. He attended Indooroopilly State Primary School and graduated from Brisbane Boys' College in the inner city suburb of Toowong.

He began swimming regularly at age eight as part of his rehabilitation from a serious leg injury incurred after running through a plate glass window.

1996 Olympic Games

At the time of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Perkins was out of form and long-time Australian rival Daniel Kowalski was regarded as the favourite. In fact his form was so poor that he almost failed to make the Australian team. Perkins qualified for the 1500-metre freestyle final by a mere 0.24 seconds to be the slowest of the top 8 qualifiers, and it was later revealed that before the race he felt unwell and considered not swimming. From lane eight, Perkins dominated the race being the only swimmer to go under 15 minutes (14:56.40), again relegating Kowalski, who had to fight all the way and just held off Graeme Smith. Perkins became just the third swimmer to win consecutive gold medals in this event. He became the only Australian since Dawn Fraser to defend an individual Olympic championship successfully in Olympics held outside Australia.

2000 Olympic Games

Perkins was in Monte Carlo in 1993 the night Sydney won the right to host the games

He is the first person in history to hold the Olympic, World, Commonwealth and Pan Pacific titles simultaneously.

He broke over 40 Australian records during a career spanning from 1989 to 2000.

Also named an Australian Living Treasure, he was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2009 Perkins was inducted into the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame. Also in 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Kieren Perkins was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for his role as a "sports legend".

Perkins was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Queensland. Professionally, he has occasionally worked in the broadcast media. He joined National Australia Bank in 2009. Perkins was part of the team that conducted a review of the Australian swimming team at the 2012 Olympics.

In November 2020, Perkins was appointed as President of Swimming Australia.

He was a director of the Starlight Foundation. Perkins is an outspoken critic of the so-called "Enhanced Games", an Olympic-style sports competition that would permit doping, saying in March 2024 at a SportNXT conference in Melbourne: "Someone will die if we allow that sort of environment to continue to foster and flourish."

Personal life

Perkins married in 1997 and has three children with ex-wife Symantha. In June 2012, Perkins announced that he and Symantha had separated. In October 2014, Perkins married Karen Davis in Positano, Italy.

References

External links

Kieren Perkins's Complete Biography