Donna de Varona

Biography

Donna de Varona went to Santa Clara High School, where George Haines coached the swim team for a time. In 1960, when she was 13, she made the U.S. Olympic team. At that point she already owned the world record in the 400-meter individual medley, but that race wasn't on the Olympic program until 1964. At the Rome Games that year, she swam in the prelims of the women's 4x100 freestyle relay but didn't get a gold medal because she wasn't in the final.

Four years later in Tokyo, after racking up 18 world bests and world records in her career, she took gold in the 400-meter individual medley, beating the runner-up by six seconds and setting an Olympic record. She also won a second gold as part of the U.S. 4x100 freestyle relay team that set a world record. De Varona made the covers of Sports Illustrated, Look, and Life. In 1964, both the Associated Press and United Press International named her the world's most outstanding woman athlete.

She left competitive swimming and moved into sports broadcasting, a field then dominated by men. At 17, she appeared on ABC's Wide World of Sports, making her the youngest woman sportscaster for a national network and one of the first. Her trailblazing work earned her an Emmy, two Gracies, and assignments covering 17 Winter and Summer Olympics. In 2006, she was chosen for the Museum of Television & Radio's inaugural group of fifty "She Made It" media pioneers.

Activism

In 2020, de Varona was among more than 300 women athletes and activists who signed a letter to the National Collegiate Athletic Association supporting an Idaho law that bans transgender women student athletes from competing in women's and girls' sports. She stated that those who want to compete as transgender male to female athletes should be accommodated in a separate or more creative manner. In 2021, she joined the Women's Sports Policy Working Group, formed in opposition to President Joe Biden's Executive Order 13988, which mandates blanket inclusion for all transgender women athletes, with the order's stated goal of protecting the girls' and women's competitive categories while crafting accommodations for trans athletes.

Did You Know?

• De Varona graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1986.
• Her younger sister is actress-director Joanna Kerns.
• She and her husband, John Pinto, have two children, John David and Joanna.