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| Full name | Marcus Lyndon Tonelli | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality |  Australia |
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| Stroke(s) | Freestyle, butterfly, backstroke | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| College team | University of Alabama | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | 13 April 1957 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Ipswich, Queensland, Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 185 cm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 70 kg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Marcus Lyndon Tonelli (born Marcus Lyndon Leembruggen on April 13, 1957 in Ipswich, Queensland) was an Australian backstroke, butterfly and freestyle swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won a gold in the 4 × 100 m medley relay at the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a makeshift butterfly swimmer in the self-named Quietly Confident Quartet. Tonelli led the quartet and was an athletes' spokesperson who fought for the right of Australian Olympians to compete in the face of a government call for a boycott in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Tonelli took up swimming due to his asthma, and quickly came to prominence, winning Australian selection for the 1973 World Championships, coming sixth in the 200 m backstroke at the age of 16. He won his first Australian titles in 1974 in the 100 m backstroke and 200 m butterfly and went on to the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch where he won his first major international competition, winning the 100 m backstroke and collecting a silver in the 200 m backstroke. In 1975, Tonelli won his only individual medal at global level, with silver in the 200 m backstroke at the 1975 World Championships in Cali, Colombia. Tonelli enrolled at the University of Alabama in 1976, studying and competing in the collegiate sport system. He was selected in both backstroke events for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, but struggled, missing the medals in both events. During his stay in the United States, Tonelli set times that would have placed him among the world's leading swimmers but he was expelled from the 1978 Commonwealth Games team for disciplinary reasons.
After finishing his American university career, Tonelli returned to Australia and gained selection for his second Olympics. Having cleared the political obstacles, Tonelli was given a heavy schedule, swimming both backstroke races as well as the 100 m freestyle and butterfly, in addition to two relays. He made little impact in the individual events, only reaching the final of one. Australia's lack of butterfly swimmers and Tonelli's versatility saw him swim the stroke in the medley relay, and he swum above his previous levels of his performance, posting a time fast enough to win the silver medal in the individual event as he helped Australia to an unexpected win. Upon returning to Australia, Tonelli retired with eleven individual Australian championships in three different strokes.
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Tonelli was born as Mark Leembruggen in Ipswich, Queensland to a working-class family. His father Lyndon was a blue-collar worker of Dutch origin and his Irish mother Muriel worked in the Queensland Department of Industrial Relations.[1] His mother was pregnant with twins, but she miscarried one of the children and gave birth only to Mark. The family moved to the northern outback mining town of Mount Isa, where Muriel remarried Renato "Ray" Tonelli, an Italian immigrant labourer. Still a toddler, Tonelli and his stepfather left the town and returned to Brisbane.[2] He adopted his stepfather's surname, but did not officially change his name until he was 18.[3]
Tonelli was effectively an only child, with a younger half-sister not being born until he was 14.[1] A decade later, he discovered two further half-sisters from his biological father's remarriage.[4] His family moved around frequently due to his stepfather's work, before settling in Brisbane.[1] Tonelli's family had no history of athletic success, and had little knowledge of swimming, but his mother encouraged him to take up the sport to ease his problems with asthma. In his first year, he came third in his age group at Western Districts Club, prompting his mother to send him at age nine to John Keating at the Centenary Pool in the hope that her son could improve to Olympic standards.[1] Tonelli said that the reality was that he could hardly swim at all.[5] By the age of ten, Tonelli was regularly winning at school carnivals and at eleven, came seventh in the 100 m freestyle in his division at the State Championships, before winning it in the following year.[1] Tonelli rates his win over Stephen Holland, the future 1500 m freestyle world champion and world record holder, in a 200 m freestyle race at a schoolboys' carnival as this favourite race. Holland was to break his first world record just a few months later.[6]
Keating motivated Tonelli by showing him the best times recorded by American boys of the same age, as documented in Swimming World magazine. Unaware that the Americans were swimming in 50 yd pools, Tonelli could not understand why he could never surpass their times.[7] However, Tonelli said that his greatest motivation was the desire to impress his parents.[8]
In 1973, at the age of 15, Tonelli competed in his first ever Australian Age Championships in Hobart, winning the 100 m and 200 m freestyle and the 200 m backstroke. These results allowed him to swim at the preliminary qualifying trials for the 1973 World Aquatics Championships, where he managed four fourth placings.[1] However, the selectors held another set of trials just before the World Championships, which offered a final chance of selection.[1] Tonelli said "Everyone, except me, knew it was a ploy simply to keep the team on its toes".[9]
Upon returning to Brisbane, he was injured while participating in judo at high school, tearing some rib cartilage. The pain of the injury restricted him to swimming backstroke for four months, and his times dropped steadily during this period as be trained under John Rigby at the Valley Pool. At the final selection event, he came second in both the 100 m and 200 m backstroke, behind Olympic gold medallist Brad Cooper to qualify for his international debut. He came sixth in the World Championships in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in the 200 m backstroke, behind East Germany's Roland Matthes, who set a world record.[1] Tonelli self-deprecatingly noted that "I didn't get to see him [Matthes] swim in the final, because I was in the same race five sets of speedos behind".[10]
Tonelli won his first Australian titles in 1974, claiming both the 100 m backstroke and 200 m butterfly in his first attempt at the stroke at senior national level. He completed the victories in times of 59.55 s and 2 m 7.30 s. Tonelli also claimed victory with the Queensland team in the 4 × 200 m freestyle and the 4 × 100 m medley relay team. It was the first time that Queensland had won the former relay. In total, Tonelli had claimed gold medals in three different strokes at his first Australian Championships.[1]
Tonelli was selected for the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he had his first success at international level. He won his first gold medal at international level in the 100 m backstroke, where he won his heat comfortably before winning in a Games record of 59.65 s.[1] Tonelli was second to Cooper in the 200 m backstroke, finishing in a time of 2 m 9.47 s, more than three seconds in arrears.[11][1] He also claimed a silver in the 4 × 100 m medley relay, being thwarted by Canada despite being part of an Australian record, but was eliminated in the heats of the 200 m butterfly.[1][12]
In 1975, Tonelli won the 100 m backstroke and the 200 m backstroke and 200 m butterfly events at the Australian Championships. Although he won more titles than in the previous year, his times were slower, completing the distances in 59.70 s, 2 m 10.50 s and 2 m 10.00 s respectively.[11] His Queensland team also successfully defended their medley relay title.[1] Tonelli was selected for the team for the 1975, World Championships in Cali, Colombia. He qualified fastest for the 200 m backstroke final and had planned to pursue an aggressive, fast-start strategy. However, he was advised to swim conservatively in the first half of the race by Terry Gathercole so that Matthes and John Naber would not be able to draft from. The strategy backfired and Tonelli ended with the silver medal.[1] He had swum faster in the second half of the race and felt that he had too much energy left at the end of the race. Tonelli vowed that from then on, he would always back his judgment and race strategy.[13]
After the World Championships, Tonelli accepted a swimming scholarship from the University of Alabama, after rejecting offers from Stanford University and Harvard University, to train under John Gambril.[1] Tonelli almost killed himself before ever swimming for the university, after joining the campus skydiving club and suffering a mid-air parachute malfunction.[14] Tonelli eventually completed a BA in Communications and Film.[1]
After enrolling at Alabama, his parents paid for him to return to Australia for the 1976 National Championships, which were the selection trials for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. Tonelli won the 100 m backstroke in a time of 58.35 s but was relegated to silver in the 200 m event by Mark Kerry. Along with Kerry, Tonelli was selected in both backstroke events, as well as in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay.[15]
Tonelli came eighth in every round of the 100 m backstroke. He came second in his heat in a time of 58.53 s, making him the eighth fastest qualifier for the semifinals. He then scraped into the 100 m final as the slowest qualifier—0.01 s ahead of fellow Australian Glenn Patching—after finishing fourth in a time of 58.14 s. He came eighth in the final in a time of 58.42 s and did not threaten the medals, with John Naber of the United States winning in a time of 55.49 s.[16] In the 200 m event, he came second in his heat to qualify sixth fastest for the final.[17] In the final, he came fourth and missed the medals— which were swept by the Americans—by 1.82 s. He was 3.98 s behind Naber, who broke the world record and became the first swimmer to break two minutes in the event.[15][17] Australia struggled in the 800 m freestyle relay, being eliminated in the preliminary round after finishing third in their heat,[15][12] and ninth overall. Tonelli swam the second leg in a time of 1 m 55.94 s.[18]
Tonelli returned to Alabama after the Olympics and intensified his training regimen, He recollected that "The coach really supplied me with the environment to improve. I got used to pressure. You had to stand up and race in dual meets almost every other weekend, no matter how you felt. In Australia you are lucky if you get two top meets a year." He won the US Championship in the 100 m backstroke in 1977 at Mission Viejo, becoming one of the few Australians to win a US title.[15]
Tonelli continued in the United States in 1978, recollecting "I really hit my straps", reporting that he had swum times in time trials during training that would have broken world records. Since he was in the United States, he was allowed to qualify for the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada by swimming in special events in North America.[15] Tonelli raced in five events at the Canada Cup held in Edmonton and won four. During a drunken party after the competition, Tonelli and some fellow swimmers decided to steal three giant flags from poles in the city centre: those of Canada, the city of Edmonton, and Alberta. In the process, Tonelli fell off the staff and was hospitalised, his arm put in plaster.[19]
He returned to Mission Viejo and continued his build-up in spite of his arm injury, before flying to the Australian training camp in Hawaii,[15] where he was named as captain.[20] However his international career appeared to be in disarray when along with two teammates, Mark Kerry and Joe Dixon, he was expelled from the training camp for breaking a 10 pm curfew on the American Independence Day holiday.[21][12] Tonelli also admitted to the officials that he had smoked marijuana on the night,[22] In the aftermath of the incident, Tonelli appeared on Australian television, strongly denying rumours that he had been involved in a drug orgy with teammates. He admitted to smoking marijuana, but defended his actions, saying that it was not illegal under Hawaii law. Supporters in Australia, including future Prime Minister Bob Hawke, launched a petition for his reinstatement, which garnered thousands of signatures, but to no avail.[23]
He returned to the United States, while his team-mates competed for their country. In the meantime, Tonelli again won the 100 m backstroke title at the US Nationals in a time two seconds faster than Glenn Patching in claiming Commonwealth gold.[15] He said that his career was "never the same again" after his expulsion by a "kangaroo court", feeling that the punishment had weakened his will. Tonelli predicted that he could have won eight Commonwealth Games gold medals and possibly set a world record in the 200 m backstroke.[24]
In 1979 Tonelli failed to defend his US title,[11] but he still came third in the NCAA Championships in his final year at university. In his four years at Alabama, he was an eight-time All-American in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke.[15] His triumph at the NCAA Championships came amid the backdrop of the death of a teammate in a waterskiing accident during a recreational event with a group of fellow swimmers. Tonelli was driving the powerboat when he did a u-turn that resulted in his teammate being thrown into the water. The boat's propellor then struck the teammate, who was killed almost instantly due to severe cuts and blood loss.[25]
Tonelli graduated,[26] returned to Australia and won the 100 m freestyle, butterfly and backstroke events at the Australian Championships. He repeated the freestyle and butterfly victories in 1980 in times of 51.80 s and 56.64 s to gain selection for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, as well as selection in the 100 m backstroke after finishing second to Kerry. However, another obstacle arose with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which resulted in a boycott of the Games by a large part of the Western World, led by the United States. The Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was also the patron of the Australian Olympic Committee, and significant political pressure came to bear on the athletes to boycott the Games. Tonelli however, realised that only the sportspeople would suffer from a boycott and that trade relations would continue unabated. He took a leadership role among the athletes to fight for their right to compete.[15][27] According to women's captain Lisa Forrest,[28] Tonelli adopted populist tactics in championing the athlete's cause. He said that Fraser was sending "wheat to feed the Russian army, wool to clothe the army and Australian metal to make Russian guns",[26] saying that this contradicted a proposed boycott in protest against the invasion.[26] Tonelli's anti-authoritarian and individualistic style manifested itself during media appearances,[29] including a news interview in which he debated Reverend Lance Shilton, who had referred to the athletes as traitors.[29] Shilton expressed sympathy to the athletes, which Tonelli interpreted as condescension. He responded by rolling his eyes and twirling his finger, a gaffe that was broadcast on national television.[29] Forrest said that "the damage was done — one of our most prominent anti-boycott lobbyists...looked like a smart alec".[29]
Tonelli arrived in Moscow facing a heavy schedule: he was nominated in the 100 m freestyle, 100 m backstroke, 100 m butterfly, 200 m backstroke and the 4 × 100 m medley relay and the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay.[15] Tonelli came third in his heat of the 100 m freestyle to qualify fourth in the time of 52.04 s. However, he swam slower in coming fifth in his semifinal in a time of 52.17 s to miss the final by 0.26 s. Overall, he was ranked 10th, but if he repeated his Australian record, he would have come sixth.[30]
Tonelli had another let-down in the 100 m backstroke. He won his heat—which was relatively slow—in a time of 58.66 s, and scraped into the semifinals as the 15th of 16 qualifiers. He then came second in his semifinal in a time of 57.89 s to qualify in third position,[15] before again swimming slower in the final and finishing seventh in a time of 57.98 s. However, the event was closely contested, with only 0.18 s separating third and ninth places in the semifinal and only 0.35 s separating bronze and seventh in the final.[31]
Tonelli rued "I fell apart. I had swum only one big race in the past twelve months and lacked the competitive edge."[11] Tonelli came third in his heat of the 200 m backstroke in a time of 2 m 7.04 s, four seconds slower than his effort in the previous Olympics. The time placed him 15th, more than two seconds from qualifying for the final.[32] Tonelli then withdrew from the 100 m butterfly to concentrate on the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay.[11] He combined with Kerry, Graeme Brewer and Ron McKeon as Australia qualified fourth before coming seventh.[33] Tonelli swam the second leg in the final after leading off the heats. The Australians were third after the first leg, which was swum by Brewer, the bronze medallist in the corresponding individual event. However, Tonelli split 1 m 53.47 s, the fifth slowest time among the 32 swimmers, which saw Australia fall back to seventh place by the end of his leg. Australia ended the race 1.52 s outside the medals.[34][11][12] Tonelli was disappointed with the relay result, feeling that the Australians—who were ranked second in the world in the event—were too casual in the lead up to the race, in the belief that four fast legs from four fast swimmers would yield the desired result.[35]
The 4 × 100 m medley relay was the focal point of Tonelli's Moscow campaign. The event had always been won by the United States since its inception at the Olympics at the 1960 Games, and their boycott had opened up the field in the event. In the five times the event had been contested, Australia's best result had come in the inaugural race, where it out-touched Japan to claim silver. The only other time that it won a medal was in 1964, with a bronze. The previous outing in 1976 had seen Australia eliminated in the heats. Australia was regarded as a chance of a medal, but were not seen as the main threats, with Sweden, Great Britain and the Soviet Union being the most heavily fancied teams. The Soviet Union boasted the silver medallists in the 100 m backstroke and breaststroke, and their butterflyer and freestyler had come fifth and fourth respectively. The British boasted Duncan Goodhew, the breaststroke gold medallist, while Sweden's butterflyer and backstroker had won their respective events and their freestyle swimmer had come second in the 100 m.[36] Australia's team paled in comparison on paper. Neil Brooks, the freestyler, had come seventh after having an asthma attack,[37] and Peter Evans was the only individual medallist in the distance, claiming bronze in the 100 m breaststroke.[38] Kerry has been eliminated in the backstroke semifinals, while Tonelli was swimming as a makeshift butterflyer.[39][27] Adding to the pressure was the fact that Australia won no gold medals at the 1976 Olympics in any sport, so the public were still awaiting their first gold since the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.[40] Coming into the Olympics, Australia were ranked seventh out of the 13 competing countries.[41]
Australia's prospects improved after the morning heats when Sweden was disqualified. Tonelli, the eldest swimmer in the quartet at the age of 23, convened the team as its de facto leader. He asked his team-mates to commit to swimming their legs in a certain time; Kerry vowed to swim the backstroked in 57 s, Evans the breaststroke in 63 s flat, Tonelli the butterfly in 54 s and Brooks promised to anchor the team in 49.8 s, even though he had never gone faster than 51 s in his career. Tonelli named the foursome as the Quietly Confident Quartet, and they exhibited a quiet confidence as they lined up for the race.[39][27]
Kerry led off in a faster time than he had clocked in the individual event, but it was still two seconds slower than his personal best time of 57.87 s, leaving Australia in fourth place at the end of the first leg. Evans then swam a personal best of 63.01 s, leaving Australia almost level with the host nation at the halfway mark. Tonelli then swam his leg in 54.94 s, almost two seconds faster than he had done over the distance.[39] He did so with an uneven arm technique due to the uneven strength in his arms.[42] Tonelli's butterfly leg was such that if he had swum the same time in the individual event, he would have claimed the silver medal.[12] He began to lose ground in the last 50 m and was a bodylength behind until a late surge brought him to within a metre by the end of his leg. Brooks then made a powerful, well-timed dive and surfaced almost even with his Soviet counterpart. At the turn, he had drawn level and made a superior turn to take the lead. The Soviet freestyler pulled level at the 25 m mark before Brooks sprinted away again to seal an Australian victory by 0.22 s. Brooks had finished his leg in 49.86 s as he had vowed to his team mates.[37] The time of 3 m 45.70 s sealed Australia's first ever win in a medley relay at the Olympics, for men or women.[39] After the win, he said "I was totally stunned. After all the hassle, and my being the athletes' mouthpiece, we'd come through and done it".[11][12][27]
Tonelli retired after the Games. Tonelli's aquatic success was not derived from any physical advantage, as he was relatively small for a swimmer. He was only 185 cm tall and weighed 70 kg, with relatively small hands and feet. Tonelli felt that his success was based around his ability to make fast starts from the blocks, and attributed his success to his mental approach and his ability to convert his energy into a fast swim in under one minute. He made it a deliberate strategy to make himself nervous before the race, feeling that he thrived on pressure.[11]
In retirement, Tonelli did television commentary for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, before returning for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.[11] Since 2004, he has been a swimming commentator on Sky News Australia. Outside swimming, he worked at a spastic centre for children in Brisbane before opening his own swimming school. He also completed a series for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on their Lifestyle TV program and produced movies on swimming and child development. Tonelli later set up his own computing business.[11] He also served as a sports administrator, serving as a commissioner of the Australian Sports Commission.[43] One policy that he proposed was the creating of an athletes' tribunal along the lines of the Court of Arbitration for Sport so that "officials are now held accountable for their actions". He cited his expulsion from the Australian team as a motivation for creating an appeals mechanism.[44] Tonelli is currently working as a real estate agent and corporate speaker.[45]
He married his wife Lee in the late 1990s.[46] They separated in 2007.[45]
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  | Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games: Men's 100 metres Freestyle - Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games: Men's 100 metres Freestyle - Olympics at Sports-Reference.com |
| | Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games: Men's 200 metres Backstroke - Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games: Men's 200 metres Backstroke - Olympics at Sports-Reference.com |
| | Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games: Men's 100 metres Backstroke - Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games: Men's 100 metres Backstroke - Olympics at Sports-Reference.com |
| | Swimming at the 1976 Montréal Summer Games: Men's 100 metres Backstroke - Swimming at the 1976 Montréal Summer Games: Men's 100 metres Backstroke - Olympics at Sports-Reference.com |
| | Swimming at the 1976 Montréal Summer Games: Men's 200 metres Backstroke - Swimming at the 1976 Montréal Summer Games: Men's 200 metres Backstroke - Olympics at Sports-Reference.com |
| | Gold loses gloss - Birthday for Danish prince | The Daily Telegraph |
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