Daniel Kowalski

OLY

Personal information
Full name	Daniel Steven Kowalski
National team	Australia
Born	(1975-07-02) 2 July 1975 (age 48) Singapore
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	76 kg (168 lb)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Freestyle
Medal record Men's swimming Representing Australia Olympic Games 2000 Sydney 4 × 200 m freestyle 1996 Atlanta 1500 m freestyle 1996 Atlanta 200 m freestyle 1996 Atlanta 400 m freestyle World Championships (LC) 1998 Perth 4 × 200 m freestyle 1994 Rome 1500 m freestyle 1998 Perth 1500 m freestyle World Championships (SC) 1993 Palma 400 m freestyle 1993 Palma 1500 m freestyle 1995 Rio 400 m freestyle 1995 Rio 1500 m freestyle 1995 Rio 4 × 200 m freestyle 1999 Hong Kong 1500 m freestyle Pan Pacific Championships 1995 Atlanta 4 × 200 m freestyle 1995 Atlanta 400 m freestyle 1995 Atlanta 800 m freestyle 1993 Kobe 400 m freestyle 1993 Kobe 800 m freestyle 1993 Kobe 1500 m freestyle 1995 Atlanta 200 m freestyle 1995 Atlanta 1500 m freestyle Commonwealth Games 1994 Victoria 4 × 200 m freestyle 1998 Kuala Lumpur 4 × 200 m freestyle 1994 Victoria 1500 m freestyle 1994 Victoria 400 m freestyle 1998 Kuala Lumpur 200 m freestyle 1998 Kuala Lumpur 400 m freestyle

Daniel Steven Kowalski OAM OLY (born 2 July 1975) is an Australian former middle- and long-distance swimmer specialising in freestyle events. He competed in the Olympic Games in 200-, 400- and 1,500-metre individual freestyle events and in the 4 × 200-metre freestyle relay. At the 1996 Summer Olympics, he was the first man in 92 years to earn medals in all of the 200-, 400- and 1500-metre freestyle events. Kowalski, alongside Livinia Nixon, hosted the short-lived TV show Plucka's Place in 1997. Kowalski is perhaps best known for having been a perpetual runner-up to fellow Australians Kieren Perkins and Grant Hackett, who were, respectively, the world's best 1500-metre freestyle competitors during the earlier and later parts of Kowalski's career. He was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder.^[1] Daniel's coaches included Denis Cotterell and Bill Nelson.

Olympic medals

• 2000 Summer Olympics: gold medal in the 4 × 200-metre freestyle relay (Kowalski was replaced in the final by Ian Thorpe but as a swimmer in the qualifying heat, he shares the gold medal)
• 1996 Summer Olympics: silver medal in the 1500-metre freestyle, bronze medal in the 400 m freestyle, and bronze medal in the 200-metre freestyle

World championship results

• 1998 World Aquatics Championships: bronze medal in the 1500-metre freestyle
• 1994 World Aquatics Championships: gold medal in the 4 × 200-metre relay, silver medal in the 1500-metre freestyle

World records

Kowalski was part of the world record-setting Australian gold medal 4 × 200-metre relay team at the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Kowalski also holds 400-metre freestyle long-course masters world record in the 30-to-34 age group which he set on 2 May 2009 in a time of 3:58.42.

Retirement

Kowalski announced his retirement from competitive swimming on 8 May 2002. He studied sports marketing at Bond University, graduating in 2003. He was named as an assistant swimming coach at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2007, and also won the 2007 Pier to Pub 1.2 km open-water swim held annually in Lorne, Australia.^[2]

In February 2004, he was the host of an overnight program on SEN 1116 with former South East Melbourne Magic basketballer Andrew Parkinson.^{[citation needed]} In May 2007, Kowalski appeared as one of the celebrity performers on the celebrity reality singing competition It Takes Two.^{[citation needed]}

In April 2010, Kowalski announced that he is gay.^[3] Kowalski says he was inspired to come out by Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas, who announced the previous December that he was gay. He said "I felt really compelled to do it because it's very tough to live a closeted existence". In 2010, Kowalski was selected by readers of samesame.com.au as one of the 25 most influential gay Australians.^[4]