A look at American backstroke swimmer Aaron Peirsol and his athletic career (Part I)
Aaron Wells Peirsol was born on the 23rd of July 1983 in Irvine California. The athlete has made many world records in the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke. Peirsol is a backstroke swimmer and has represented America in the Summer Olympics of 2000, 2004 Athens Olympics and 2008 Beijing Olympics. He has a won total of seven medals in the Olympics. Aaron is popularly known as the best backstroke swimmer in the history of American swimming on the basis of the numerous strong performances that he has given in all the national and international water sport events and championships. Particularly, he became widely popular after his brilliant performances at the Athens Olympics. Besides the Olympic Games, the great athlete has won numerous titles in the world championships of 2003, 2005 and 2007 in the 100 metre backstroke and in the world championships of 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2009 in the 200 metre backstroke.
Aaron Peirsol’s sister Hayley Peirsol is also an American long distance swimmer and has been training at the same place as her brother in Irvine Novaquatics before she went to Auburn University.
Aaron Peirsol was a member of the collegiate team of the University of Texas at Austin. He was a student at the Newport Harbor High School and after leaving the Newport Costa Mesa, where he had his first swim team; he started training at Irvine Novaquatic. He has been under the training of Eddie Reese.
When he was 17, he first competed in the Summer Olympics of 2000 and managed to win the silver medal after he finished behind Lenny Krayzelburg in the 200 metre backstroke. After this particular event, Piersol was considered to be the successor of the world champion Lenny. At the World Aquatics Championships of 2001 that took place in Fukuoka, the American backstroke swimmer won the 200 metre backstroke race in a time of 1 minute and 57.13 seconds, which is a championship record and no swimmer has been able to break it in any World Aquatics Championships until now.
In the World Aquatics Championships that took place in Barcelona in 2003, Aaron managed to take away the gold medals in the 100 metre backstroke, 200 metre backstroke and 4 into 100 metre medley relay. In the 4 into 200 metre freestyle relay, the great American athlete won the silver medal. Aaron won the 100 metre backstroke in the same event in a time of 53.61 seconds to make a championship record. With this time, he just beat Lenny Krazyelburg’s world record by just 1 hundredth of a second. Piersol helped his American team at Barcelona to finish second to the Australian team by finishing the 4 into 200 metre freestyle relay in just 1 minute and 48.88 seconds, where he swam the third leg. Aaron finished 2 minutes before the second place finisher Gordan Kozulji in the 200 metre backstroke. This was a very strong performance; a race that he finished in 1 minute and 55.92 seconds. While in the 4 into 100 metre medley relay, Piersol swam ahead of the Russian and Japanese swimmers and swam his leg in a time of 53.71 seconds. The American squad, however, finished the event with a world record of 3 minutes and 31.54 seconds.
The next major international event in which Aaron Peirsol swam was the 2004 Summer Olympics at Athens, Greece. He won the gold medals in the 100 metre and 200 metre breaststroke in these Olympics. The athlete also managed to finish the race in the first place in the 4 into 100 metre medley relay with a world record. Aaron Peirsol was initially disqualified from the event on the allegation that he illegally took a turn in the 200 metre breaststroke race. Since the allegation did not have any true basis, it was soon overturned and the disqualification taken back. These particular Olympics caused many controversies for Aaron. He also accused his counterpart Kosuke Kitajima, after the 100 metre breaststroke race in which they both competed, of using a dolphin kick that was not allowed. American swimmer Brendan Hansen was defeated by two tenths of a second in this particular meet.
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