Sports Physician - Athlete 1941

1941

Australian rugby player Mervin Cross (1941-) played defensive forward for the South Sydney, the Eastern Suburbs and the North Sydney in the New South Wales Rugby League. As an Orthopedic Surgeon he specialized in knee surgery and sports medicine, which he practiced at his private institute North Sydney Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center.

1941

Chet Jastremski (1941-2014) won the bronze medal in the 200m breaststroke at the 1964 Olympics in Rome. Four years later in Mexico he won the gold medal gold with the American relay team 4 x 100m medley, but he was only allowed to swim the series, in the final there was no place for him according to the coach. He crowned himself sixteen times as an American champion, improved twelve world records and 21 national best times. He was also the first to go below one minute at the 100 yards breaststroke. He swam a completely new style that was named after him, but was also known as the whip kick, with the knees facing inwards, in contrast to the frog kick where they turn outwards. He graduated from Indiana University and served as a general practitioner in Bloomington, Indiana, where he practiced for 35 years before rheumatoid arthritis forced him to stop. But when the Bloomington Internal Medicine Associates asked him, he nevertheless resumed his practice at the age of 68.

1941

Alan Somers (1941-) swam a new world record 4 x 200m freestyle with the American relay team two months before the 1960 Olympics with a time of 8.17.0. He also competed in 400 and 1,500m freestyle at the Olympiad of Rome with respectively a fifth and seventh place as final result. After graduating from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1968, he specialized in Neurology.