Wendy Boglioli

Early swimming and education

Born in Merrill, Wisconsin, to Mary Ellen and Eber Lansbach, she moved 80 miles north and began swimming at a local YMCA in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin. Some of her earliest swimming took place at the Gateway Hotel Pool, which was only 18 yards. She attended Eagle River High School, which had no swim team, so she trained with the YMCA and became a National Champion by her senior year. In 1972, she placed 14th in the 100-yard butterfly at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Chicago.

Monmouth College and Central Jersey Aquatic

In 1973, she received one of America's earliest women's swimming scholarships to Monmouth College, where she majored in speech and drama from 1973 to 1976. Her intensive training was with the Central Jersey Aquatic Club under Head Coach Bill Palmer. At her peak, she swam up to 20,000 meters daily. As a Monmouth senior in 1976, she won the AIAW 100 butterfly with a U.S. National Record time of 55.6, the first national record set by an AIAW athlete.

She also set meet records in the 100-yard freestyle and 200 free relay, swimming with her younger sister Laurie. In February 1976, she won three events at the New Jersey AAU Championships, twice beating teammate Kathy Heddy. She married Bernie Boglioli in August 1975, becoming the first married woman to make a U.S. Olympic swim team. Her sister Laurie later swam for Monmouth and earned a gold medal at the 1983 Pan American games.

1976 Montréal Olympics

Boglioli won a gold medal in the women's 4×100-meter freestyle relay in world record time with teammates Shirley Babashoff, Kim Peyton, and Jill Sterkel. This was the only gold medal awarded to the U.S. women's team at those games. During the 1990s, it was confirmed that Ender and Pollack were given performance-enhancing drugs in the East German doping scandal, leading to speculation that Boglioli would have been in line for a gold or silver medal otherwise.

Life after the Olympics

She began training for the 1980 Olympics but the U.S. boycotted the Moscow games. After college, she briefly coached Central New Jersey Aquatics and served as assistant coach of the Yale Bulldogs swimming and diving team with her husband. She served on the Olympic Committee, raised funds for the 1984 games, and served on the Governor's Board on Physical Fitness. She worked as a representative for Johnson's Wax.

In 1979, her name and picture appeared on a Supersisters trading card. In 1997, she entered long-term care insurance and became national spokeswoman for Genworth Financial. She appeared in the documentary Doping for Gold (2008) and The Last Gold (2016). She resides in Hood River, Oregon, with her husband, and gives motivational speeches titled 'Finding the Champion Within'.