Having been the first female to win six medals in one Olympic Games, Natalie Coughlin emerged from Beijing in 2008 as one of the most decorated female swimmers in Olympic history. Born on Aug. 23, 1982 in Vallejo, CA, Coughlin was raised by her father, Jim, and her mother, Zennie. She first began swimming at the local YMCA when she was just 10 months old. At six years old, Coughlin began competitive swimming and quickly displayed her prowess in the pool, later becoming an accomplished student-athlete at Carondelet High School in Concord, CA. In 1999, Coughlin suffered a setback when she had a shoulder injury that eventually prevented her from qualifying in the 2000 Olympic Trials. Undeterred, she accepted a swimming scholarship at the University of California, Berkley and within a year had won five national titles while breaking collegiate records in the backstroke and butterfly. In 2001, she won a gold medal in the backstroke at the World Championships in Japan. By the end of her collegiate career, Coughlin amassed just about every honor, title and award a competitive swimmer could muster, while becoming the first woman ever to go under 59 seconds in the long course 100m backstroke.
In the midst of her immensely successful college career, Coughlin set her sights on the Olympic Games. Already a star before she made it to Athens in 2004, she emerged from those Olympics a national celebrity, having won two gold medals while becoming only the third American woman to capture five overall. After another brush with injury in 2005, Coughlin won two more national titles and graduated from Cal Berkley with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology, though she skipped the graduation ceremony to compete at the USA Swimming Grand Prix. For the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, she was co-captain of the swim team alongside Amanda Beard and Dana Torres. Coughlin emerged from the Games with a total of six medals – a first for any modern female athlete at the Olympics – including another gold in the 100m backstroke. With her celebrity at an all time high, Coughlin hoped to become the next Shawn Johnson when she joined the season nine cast of “Dancing With the Stars” (ABC, 2005- ), appearing alongside supermodel and entrepreneur Kathy Ireland, famed singer Donnie Osmond and disgraced politician Tom Delay.
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