Bruce Furniss

Bruce MacFarlane Furniss (born May 27, 1957) is an American swimmer. He won two gold medals in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal in the 200-meter freestyle and the 4 x 200-meter Freestyle Relay, both in world record time. [ [http://usctrojans.cstv.com/genrel/102800aaa.html 2001 Inductees For USC Athletic Hall of Fame Announced] ] He attended Foothill High School and USC.

During an illustrious swimming career spanning seventeen years, Bruce Furniss broke ten World and nineteen American Records, and won 11 AAU and six NCAA Titles. He was a member of the 1976 U.S. Olympic Swimming Team, a team regarded by most sports historians as the most dominating Olympic sports team ever assembled winning 13 of 14 [93%] possibe Gold Medals and 28 of 36 [77%] possible total medals. Bruce won Olympic Gold in the 200-meter Freestyle, (one of only three Americans to ever win this Olympic event; Mark Spitz in 1972 and Michael Phelps in 2008 being the other two] , and the 4 x 200-meter Freestyle Relay, setting World Records in each event. In the 200-meter Freestyle he led a U.S.A. sweep finishing ahead of fellow Americans John Naber (Silver) and Jim Montgomery (Bronze). He teamed up with Naber, Montgomery and Mike Bruner on the 4 x 200-meter Freestyle Relay.

Bruce also garnered two Gold and two Silver Medals in the 1975 World Aquatics Championships in Cali, Colombia and 1978 World Aquatics Championships in West Berlin, FRG. However, the highlight of his aquatic accomplishments came in April 2000 when Bruce was selected to “U.S.A. Swimming’s Swim Team of the 20th Century,” an honor bestowed on only 26 U.S. male swimmers deemed to be the best of the best in the twentieth century. In January of 2004, Bruce was one of six former collegiate athletes in the nation recognized as recipients of The NCAA's Silver Anniversary Award. This award is given annually to six individuals in recognition of their 25 years of post-graduate career achievements, contributions to professional organizations, and charitable and civic activities within their community.

As a seven year-old in 1964, Bruce was inspired by the four Gold Medal performance of American swimmer Don Schollander, who broke the 200-meter Freestyle World Record an astonishing ten times during his career and to this day is deemed the event’s greatest performer. A mere eleven years later, Bruce became the twelfth of only fourteen Americans in history to break the 200-meter Freestyle World Record. During his career he broke the 200-meter Freestyle World Record four different times [only Schollander (10), Australia’s Ian Thorpe (6), and Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamanaka (5) have broken the event’s record more times] . Bruce laid claim to the 200-meter Freestyle World Record from 1975 to 1979.

Notably, Bruce’s dream of winning a third, and, quite possibly, a fourth Olympic Gold Medal was thwarted when the International Olympic Committee inexplicably removed the 200-meter Individual Medley and the 4 x 100-meter Freestyle Relay (an event the United States had never lost) from the 1976 Olympic Games. As the reigning 200-meter Individual Medley World Record holder from 1975 through 1977 (the twelfth of seventeen Americans to ever hold the record), Bruce unquestionably was deemed the favorite for the event’s 1976 Olympic Gold Medal. Bruce was also U.S.A.'s third fastest in the 100-meter Freestyle in 1975, and was a member of the World Champion and World Record-holding quartet in the 4 x 100-meter Freestyle Relay, an event the U.S. was favored to win in 1976 had the race been swum. Ironically both events were permanently reinstated into the Olympic program eight years later.

A 1975 graduate of Tustin California’s Foothill High School, Bruce is the third of four highly successful aquatic brothers, often referred to as “Orange County California’s First Family of Swimming.” Older brother, Steve Furniss, a two-time swimming Olympian (1972 Olympic Bronze Medallist and 1976 Olympic Team Captain), and Bruce are among a rare group of siblings, in any sport, to make the same Olympic Team. Unfortunately the heartbreaking decision by the International Olympic Committee to remove the 200-meter Individual Medley from the 1976 Olympic Games robbed Bruce and Steve the unique opportunity to compete against each other in an Olympic swimming event. However, Bruce and Steve share the distinction as the only known brothers ever to have held and broken one another’s World Records consecutively. Bruce broke Steve’s 200-meter Individual Medley World Record in August 1975, while competing in the U.S. Sr. National Championships in Kansas City, KS. In that same meet, Bruce and Steve, swimming for Long Beach Swim Club, shared the equally unique accomplishment, (along with teammates Tim Shaw and Rex Favaro), as the last club team to break a swimming relay World Record (4 x 200-meter freestyle relay). Earlier that same summer at the World Swimming Championships Team Trials in Long Beach, CA, Bruce also accomplished the rare feat of breaking the same World Record twice in the same day (June 18, 1975) in the 200-meter freestyle.

Bruce was twice named World Swimmer of the Year, once in 1975 and again in 1976. In 1974 and 1975, he won the Robert J. H. Kiphuth Award as the high point winner at the U.S. National Outdoor Championships. He was inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame in 1984 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1987. In May 2001, Bruce was inducted into the University of Southern California Athletic Hall of Fame; the fourth male swimmer in the school’s 125-year history awarded the honor. Bruce also participated in carrying the Olympic flame as a participant of the 1984, 1996 and 2004 Olympic Torch Relays in the Los Angeles area.

It is also interesting to note that in the midst of these extraordinary athletic accomplishments, and throughout much of his prime swimming career, Bruce became noted for achieving athletic success in spite of waging a quiet and very personal battle against the crippling arthritic disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis.

Bruce graduated in 1979 from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications, where he received his B.A. degree in Journalism.

External links

* [http://www.databaseolympics.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=FURNIBRU01 www.databaseolympics.com]

References