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Kevin O'Halloran (3 March 1937 – 5 July 1976) was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1950s who won a gold medal in the 4×200-metre freestyle relay at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. The first Western Australian to win Olympic gold, O'Halloran learnt to swim in his home town of Katanning. He moved to Perth to attend secondary schooling at Guildford Grammar School, where he became more committed to swimming. Competitive swimming was not well developed in Western Australia: races were held in muddy river pools; hence, in late 1955, O'Halloran moved to the east coast to support his attempt to qualify for the Olympics. His new coach, Frank Guthrie, overhauled his training regimen and within a year O'Halloran had reduced his times by approximately ten percent. He gained Olympic selection in the relay and the 400-metre freestyle. O'Halloran led off the Australian quartet on the way to a new world record, before placing sixth in the 400-metre. Thereafter, O'Halloran's career was beset by ear problems, and he retired in 1958 after failing to qualify for the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. In 1976, O'Halloran died after tripping and accidentally shooting himself. ==Early years== Born in Katanning,〔 O'Halloran grew up on his family's sheep property at Kojonup— to the west of his birthplace—on a property established by his grandfather in 1900. He had two brothers and a sister. After his father enlisted during the Second World War, his mother could no longer run the farm and raise the children by herself, so the family moved to Katanning for seven years.〔Howell, p. 139.〕 Katanning was one of the few country towns in Western Australia that had a public swimming pool. Along with his siblings, O'Halloran learned to swim there, often defeating local boys who were four years his senior. At the age of 8, he was taught to swim competitively by his teacher at Katanning State Primary School, who was an age group champion in her youth. The boom in wool prices at the time of the Korean War inflated his family's income, allowing them to send O'Halloran to Guildford Grammar School in Perth,〔 the state's capital city. At the age of 14, he won five events in the school championships, and led the school to its first state championship in 29 years. He also competed for his school in Australian rules football and rowing.〔 O'Halloran attracted the attention of the leading Western Australian coach Don Gravenall, but his schoolwork limited him to a few weeks of intense training over Christmas. In 1952, at the age of 15, O'Halloran began to make his mark at the state level. He played a major role in Guildford's win at the interschool championships, placing second in the individual points tally. He won the 100 m freestyle, 50 m breaststroke and 400 m freestyle.〔 Competitive swimming was slow to develop in Western Australia and O'Halloran's state debut came in 1952, only the second time the Western Australian Championships had been held. He won the junior 110 yd freestyle and butterfly and the 220 yd freestyle and was second in the open 110 yd freestyle, in a muddy pool on the Swan River in the Perth suburb of Crawley. The arena was such that the bottom could not be seen and jellyfish lurked in the area,〔 sometimes climbing onto the swimmers' bodies. When O'Halloran returned to his home, he often trained in a muddy waterhole.〔Howell, p. 140.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kevin O'Halloran」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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