John Konrads

• Born: May 21, 1942
• Birthplace: Riga, Ostland (present day Latvia)
• Died: April 25, 2021
• Place of death: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Sport: Swimming

Early Life

John Konrads, of the brother-and-sister combination known as “the Konrads Kids,” was born on May 21, 1942, in Riga, Latvia. His sister, Ilsa, was born on March 29, 1944. When John was three years old, his parents fled the Soviet-occupied Latvia to Germany and then immigrated to Australia in 1949. John’s swimming story is even more dramatic in that he contracted polio while his family was living in a refugee camp near Stuttgart, Germany, before they moved to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. To help John’s polio, the “Konrads Kids” first started swimming.

The Road to Excellence

In Australia, the “Konrads Kids” were discovered by the famous Australian Olympic coach Don Talbot, who found them to be remarkable young swimmers, both coachable and willing to work hard. They quickly became child prodigies in swimming.

Ilsa was the first to set world records, at the age of thirteen, on January 9, 1958. She set two world records in the same race, in the half-mile and the 800 meters. The first was an English yards measurement, and the second, a metric measurement; world records were measured in both yards and meters at that time. Two days later, as if prompted by his little sister, John broke the men’s world records at the same distances and then added four more world records before another week had passed. The new world records were in the furlong (220 yards), the 200 meters, the quarter-mile, and the 400 meters.

The Emerging Champions

The world was excited about these wonder children from Lativa, via Australia, who had smashed so many records. They were called the “Concrete Kids” because of their toughness, the “Kindergarten Kids” because of their youth, and the Konrads Kids because that was their name. In 1956, John was a standby on the Olympic team.

In 1958, the brother-and-sister duo performed in front of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, who was chairperson of the British Commonwealth Games at Cardiff, Wales. Ilsa won the 440 yards (quarter-mile), and John was a triple gold medal winner in the three longest freestyle races. The Konrads became the only brother-and-sister combination in the history of the Commonwealth Games to win gold medals. Between them, the Konrads set seven world records in the twenty-five months between January, 1958, and February, 1960, all before John was eighteen years old and Ilsa, fifteen.

Continuing the Story

John made his biggest mark in the world of swimming at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy. He won not only a gold medal in the 1,500 meters but also two bronzes in the 4 100- and 4 200-meter freestyle relays. John was also a member of the 1964 Olympic team in Tokyo and was the first man to swim the 800-meter freestyle and the 880-yard freestyle in less than 9 minutes (8 minutes 59.6 seconds).

After the Rome Olympics, John took a job as promotional manager of a large ten-pin bowling enterprise with alleys in three of Sydney’s suburbs. He decided to give his bowling career up, however, to accept a scholarship from Peter Daland at the University of Southern California (USC), where he swam on the same team with future hall-of-famers Murray Rose, Roy Saari, and Tsuyoshi Yamanaka, all world-record holders in the distance freestyle. These four did not all graduate together, but they did compete together as the most dominant distance freestyle group ever assembled on one team. In 1971, John and Ilsa were both inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Konrads began working as a swimming coach following his retirement from swimming. Some time later, Konrads began a career in marketing, where he eventually founded an advertising and consulting firm. Following his diagnosis of bipolar II disorder in the early twenty-first century, Konrads served on the management committee of the Black Dog Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to mental health research and treatment.

Konrads died in April 2021 at the age of seventy-eight.

Summary

The Konradses’ stay at the top of competitive swimming was brief but brilliant. They were among the first of the very young swimmers to achieve excellence. Altogether, John Konrads set twenty-five records during his career, made three Olympic teams, and won three medals in Olympic competition. After serving as the president and chief executive officer of several large companies in Australia, John became a successful international marketing consultant.

Additional Sources

Colwin, Cecil. Breakthrough Swimming. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2002.

Goldstein, Richard. "John Konrads, 'Wonder Boy' Olympian Swimmer, Dies at 78." The New York Times, 5 May 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/sports/olympics/john-konrads-dead.html. Accessed 6 Sept. 2022.

Gonsalves, Kelly, and Susan LaMondia. First to the Wall: One Hundred Years of Olympic Swimming. East Longmeadow, Mass.: FreeStyle, 1999.

Wallechinsky, David, and Jaime Loucky. The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. London: Aurum Press, 2008.