Missy Franklin

Her best result was 37th place in the 100-meter freestyle.

By the time Missy graduated from high school, she possessed half the Colorado High School Activities Association time records for high school swim.

Melissa Franklin Johnson (born May 10, 1995) is an American former competitive swimmer and five-time Olympic medalist.

She held the world record in the 200-meter backstroke (long course).

As a member of the U.S. national swim team, she also held the world records in the 4×100-meter medley relay (short course and long course).

At the age of 13, Franklin competed at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Omaha, Nebraska, but did not qualify to swim in any events at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

At the 2010 National Championships, Franklin competed in six individual events, and qualified to swim at the 2010 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships by finishing second in the 100- and 200-meter backstroke.

At the 2010 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, Franklin finished fourth in the 100-meter backstroke and did not make the A final for the 50- and 200-meter backstroke.

In her Olympic debut at the 2012 Summer Olympics at age 17, Franklin won a total of five medals, four of which were gold.

She swept the women's backstroke events, winning gold in both the 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke.

Franklin's successes earned her Swimming World's World Swimmer of the Year and the American Swimmer of the Year award in 2012 as well as the FINA Swimmer of the Year Award in 2011 and 2012.

In total, she won twenty-eight medals in international competition: seventeen gold, six silver, and five bronze, spanning the Olympics, the World Championships, the short course World Championships, and the Pan Pacific Championships.

During her rise to stardom surrounding the 2012 Olympics, Franklin continued to refuse prize money and endorsements so that she could maintain her amateur status to compete in college.

In 2012, she accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where she began swimming for coach Teri McKeever's California Golden Bears women's swimming team during the 2013–14 academic year.

She attended Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado, and graduated in 2013.

Both of Franklin's parents are Canadian and Franklin holds American and Canadian dual citizenship.

Her father, Dick, was born in St. Catharines, Ontario.

A former All-Canadian football player for Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he played briefly for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League as an offensive lineman.

After an injury ended his football career, he returned to Halifax to pursue an MBA degree at Dalhousie University, where he met his future wife, a medical student.

While working for 7-Up in Ontario, Dick was transferred to the United States.

Ultimately the family settled in Denver, Colorado, where Dick had a senior position with Coors Brewing Company.

Franklin's mother suggested that her daughter consider competing for Canada to ease the pressure of qualifying for the U.S. National Team due to the competitive depth of American swimmers.

Franklin, however, chose to represent the United States, citing her patriotism for her homeland.

Franklin is 6 ft tall and has women's size 13 inch feet.

"We call them built-in flippers," says her father.

She has been coached by Todd Schmitz from the Colorado Stars club team since she was 7 years old.

At Cal, Franklin is a four-time individual NCAA champion: winning the 200-yard freestyle in 2014 and 2015, and the 200-yard backstroke and individual medley in 2015.

She won the Honda Sports Award as the nation's top female swimmer in 2015, as well as the Honda Cup awarded to the nation's top female athlete.

After the 2015 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, in which Franklin won three individual NCAA titles, Franklin turned professional, thus ending her NCAA career.

After leaving Berkeley to train for the 2016 Olympics with her Colorado team, in January 2018 Franklin elected to begin training at the University of Georgia.

Franklin's eleven gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships was a record in women's swimming before Katie Ledecky broke it in 2017.

Franklin holds dual American and Canadian citizenship, and chose to compete for the U.S. national swim team.

In December 2018, she announced her retirement from the sport.

Franklin was born in Pasadena, California, the only child of Dick and D. A. Franklin.

When she was a baby, her mother was very worried about water safety, so Franklin started swimming purely because her parents wanted her to get comfortable with the water.

She grew up in Aurora, Colorado, and began taking swimming classes there at the age of five, at the urging of her mother.

She graduated with a degree in religion from the University of Georgia in December 2019.

At the age of seven, Franklin joined the Colorado Stars travel swim team.

It was not obvious to Franklin's parents that Missy possessed such a natural talent, until other members’ parents brought it to her parents’ attention.

At the age of twelve, Franklin began competing against girls who were much older than her.