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by Ron Fimrite
The Albatross was the early bird of the Los Angeles Games. By the end of the second day of competition West German swimmer Michael (the Albatross) Gross—who, at 6'7-1/2" and with a wingspan of nearly 7-1/2 feet, did indeed resemble the large seabird from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner—had shattered two world records and swum the fastest split ever in the 4'200-meter freestyle relay.
With his huge wingspan, Gross won the 100 fly—his second world record in 24 hours.
photograph by
On the first day the 20-year-old Gross surpassed his own world standard in the 200 free with a winning time of 1:47.44. Twenty-four hours later he upset Pablo Morales of the U.S. in the 100 butterfly, breaking Morales's world record with a time of 53.08. (It was a race so close and so swift that the first five finishers each bettered the winning time from the 1980 Moscow Games.) Gross thus became the first West German swimmer to win Olympic gold since Ursula Happe won the women's 200 breaststroke at the 1956 Melbourne Games and the first West German male ever to win an Olympic swimming event.
But there was more to come. On the same day that he won the 100 butterfly (a race that will be held tonight at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center), he anchored the 4'200 freestyle relay team against the heavily favored U.S. When Gross hit the water, he had a full eight feet to make up on U.S. anchor Bruce Hayes. The Albatross was never faster in catching Hayes with only a few strokes left in the race. But Hayes, known for his strong finish, summoned up one last burst of energy and touched the wall just three inches ahead of Gross, giving the Americans a world record 7:15.69. Gross had swum his 200-meter split in an astonishing 1:46.89, nearly a second faster than the world record for that distance he had set only the day before.
However, the two-day, record-busting ordeal may have proved too taxing for Gross, who four days later was upset in his specialty, the 200-meter butterfly, by 17-year-old Jon Sieben of Australia. Sieben passed Gross on the final lap and broke the West German's world record with a 1:57.04 clocking. That silver medal would be Gross's last medal at the 1984 Games, though he competed in two more events, the 400 freestyle and the 400 medley relay.
Four years later he returned in the Seoul Games to avenge his defeat in the 200 fly, winning the gold in an Olympic record 1:56.94. A bronze in the 4'200 free relay was his sixth and last Olympic medal.
The Albatross was, even to his own countrymen, a strange duck. He passed up the banquet honoring him as West Germany's Sportsman of the Year for 1982, outraging his country's athletic establishment. He was invariably hostile to the media, routinely refusing to be interviewed while at the same time insisting he would pursue a career in journalism after college. As a public figure he was fiercely protective of his private life. "I speak easily," Gross once said, "when asked something else besides the composition of my breakfast."
Upon his graduation from secondary school in Frankfurt in 1984, he was actively recruited by U.S. colleges, particularly the University of California, where he might have become a teammate of another eventual Olympic swimming champion, Matt Biondi. But, Gross said, "the American style of life does not tempt me." Besides, he insisted, he was much more interested in politics than sports.
After earning a doctorate in philosophy in 1994, Gross did, in fact, become a part-time journalist as a contributor to the German newspaper Der Pflasterstein, whose publisher, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, was a leader in the leftist Green Party. However, Gross now works full time for the Master Media public-relations agency, whose clients include current German swimming star Fransiska van Almsick.
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SI Olympic Dailies
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