Mary T. Meagher

1964-

American swimmer

Olympic and championship swimmer Mary T. Meagher (pronounced MAW-her), known as

"Madame Butterfly," began setting world records in the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly swim as a young teen. Thwarted in her prime by the United States' 1980 Olympics boycott, Meagher one year later set world records in the butterfly that stood for nearly two decades. After competing in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, she retired from swimming with twenty-two U.S. championships, two world championships, and three Olympic gold medals. Her record in the 100-meter butterfly remained unbroken until 1999, when five-time Olympic gold medalist Jenny Thompson bested it with a swim of 57.88—.05 second ahead of Meagher's. Her world record in the 200-meter butterfly stood until 2000, when Australian champion swimmer Susan O'Neill broke it with a time of 2:05.81—.15 second ahead of Meagher's. O'Neill said she had tried for six years to break Meagher's record; she called doing so "one of the greatest moments of my life."

"The Butterfly Picked Me"

Mary Terstegge Meagher was born October 27, 1964, in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of Jim and Floy Terstegge Meagher. She grew up with nine sisters and one brother. One of her sisters was Mary Glen, so Mary was called Mary T.—or simply "T." She began swimming at age five, and by age twelve she had a world-class butterfly stroke. It came naturally, she said. She didn't pick the butterfly—it picked her.

Nicknamed Fishy by her school friends, at age fourteen, Mary began winning national and international titles. In 1979, as an eighth grader, she beat the world record of 2:09.77 in the 200-meter butterfly by .1 second at the Pan American Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The world could hardly believe that a fresh-faced teen with braces and a stuffed frog named Bubbles could swim so fast.

Chronology

Madame Butterfly

About one month after the Pan Am Games, at the 1979 Long-Course Senior National Swimming Championships, Meagher broke her own world record in the morning preliminaries, swimming the 200-meter in 2:08.41. Coming back for the evening finals, she shattered that record with a time of 2:07.01. The fourteen-year-old girl swam a faster butterfly than nearly half of the men in the competition.

Setting her sights on the 1980 Olympic Games, Meagher broke another world record—in the 100-meter butterfly—at the 1980 Indoor National Swimming Championships, with a time of 59.26, .2 faster than German Olympic gold medalist Andrea Pollack's. By this time, Meagher had earned a new nickname: Madame Butterfly.

Olympics Only a Dream, but Meagher Sets Records

Meagher made the U.S. Olympic team for the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly and for one freestyle race. At her peak, she was prepared for the 1980 Olympics, but her hopes were crushed along with those of many other American athletes when President Jimmy Carter issued a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Later learning that she could have beaten the winners' time, Meagher was so downhearted she nearly gave up swimming. Instead, the following year she unleashed her Olympic energy at the Long-Course Senior National Swimming Championships in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, setting a world record in the 100-meter butterfly with a time of 57.93. She also won a gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly, setting a world record of 2:05.96 and finishing fifteen meters ahead of the second-place winner. The audience gave Madame Butterfly a standing ovation.

1984 Olympics and Beyond

Meagher entered the University of California, Berkeley, in 1982. She won a number of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimming championships. When the time came for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles—under a Communist boycott that included tough East German teams—Meagher had trained hard. She made the U.S. team in the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly and the 4 × 100 medley relay. At the Olympics, she won a gold medal in each event. Afterward, she won gold in the Indoor Championships and in the Short- and Long-Course Championships. In 1986, she won a gold, a silver, and a bronze medal in the World Championships. In 1987 she was named Outstanding Female College Athlete of the Year and won the Honda Sports Award for the second time during her college career.

Olympics Bound Again

Meagher took five months off from swimming the year she graduated from college, to work as a teacher's aide and have a normal life. However, as the 1988 Olympics approached, she began training hard, at age twenty-three. This time, she would get to compete against the East German swimmers, and she also had hopes of breaking her own 200-meter record. To her disadvantage, she would be competing against teenagers, ever reminded that she was just sixteen when she set her standing world records.

At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea, Meagher won the bronze medal in the 200-meter butterfly and a silver for her butterfly leg in the 400-meter medley relay. Disappointed that she did not set another world record, she was still ranked number one in the world for 1988 in the 200-meter butterfly.

Awards and Accomplishments

Retirement

Meagher retired from competitive swimming soon after the 1988 Olympics with her world records intact. She worked at a bank in her native Louisville and then worked in private business through 1991. That year, she served as an athletes' representative for the U.S. Olympic Committee. When the Olympic Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1993, she was asked to be a flag bearer during the opening ceremonies. She lives in the Atlanta suburb of Peachtree City, Georgia, with her husband, sports executive Michael Plant—a former U.S. Olympic speed skater—and their two children, Andrew and Madeline, whom she has taught to swim.

In May 2000, on hearing that Susan O'Neill had finally broken her 200-meter butterfly record and earned the nickname "Madame Butterfly" in her place, Mary T. Meagher Plant said, "You couldn't ask for a nicer, more deserving person to break your record than Susie." However, Plant said she still believes she could have completed the 200-meter in 2 minutes, 4 seconds. "When I did 2:05, the last 25 meters felt real easy," she told the Los Angeles Times. "At the finish, I thought, 'I'm not tired, I could have kept going.'"

Mary T. Meagher was a gifted swimmer whose speed and strength in the butterfly were unparalleled during her career and for many years afterward. Dennis Pursley, one of her former coaches, said that Meagher had no weaknesses in her prime. He told Sports Illustrated for Women, "Motivation, technique, physical attributes—I don't know that I've ever seen an athlete who didn't have a weakness on that list—except Mary."

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: Mary Plant, 404 Vanderwall, Peachtree City, GA 30269.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Periodicals

Neff, Craig. "The U.S. Will Rule the Pool." Sports Illustrated (July 18, 1984): 94.

"Olympic Hopefuls: Teens Who Dream of Gold." Teen Magazine (May, 1984): 22.

"Olympics Oldest Swim Mark Is Broken." Seattle Times (May 18, 2000): D4.

Penner, Mike. "Aussies Make Big Splash in Besting World Marks." Los Angeles Times (May 21, 2000): D-3.

Stathoplos, Demmi. "A Bid for the Last Hurrah." Sports Illustrated (July 18, 1988): 48.

Wade, S. Lamar. "The California Gold Rush of '84." Saturday Evening Post (July, 1983): 64.

Other

Biography Resource Center Online. "Mary T. Meagher." http://galenet.galegroup.com/. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000.

"Cal's Natalie Coughlin Wins Honda Sports Award for Swimming." University of California Golden Bears. http://calbears.ocsn.com/sports/ (January 24, 2003).

"Jenny Thompson Breaks World Record: Stanford Grad Bests 18-Year-Old Mark in 100 Fly." Stanford University Cardinal Athletics. http://gostanford.ocsn.com/sports/ (August 23, 1999).

J-Mac and Associates. "Mary T. Meagher—Swimming Olympic Gold Medalist." Golden Biography. http://home.earthlink.net/~athngold/golden_biography.htm (May 16, 1998).

"Sean Lampley Named Bay Area Male College Athlete of the Year: Former Cal Swimmer Mary T. Meagher Plant Also to Be Honored." University of California Golden Bears. http://calbears.ocsn.com/ (February 11, 2002).

Wertheim, L. Jon. "Mary T. Meagher." Sports Illustrated for Women http://www.cnnsi.com/ (January 24, 2003).

Sketch by Ann H. Shurgin