Duncan Armstrong Gives Detailed Account of How He Won 1988 Olympic Gold Medal On Inside With Brett Hawke

Photo Courtesy: Swimming World Archive

1988 Olympic gold medalist Duncan Armstrong of Australia hopped on the podcast Inside With Brett Hawke to talk about how he won the 200 freestyle in stunning upset fashion with a new world record at the Seoul Olympic Games. Armstrong discussed his tremendous amount of dedication that he had in the five year lead-up to the 1988 Games and the relationship he had with his coach Laurie Laurence, who had also guided Jon Sieben to a stunning upset in 1984 in the 200 butterfly.

Armstrong gave a detailed account (26:17) of how he won the 200 freestyle Olympic gold medal despite being only ranked 48th in the world, by being 100% focused on being his absolute best on the day of the 200 free final. Armstrong went over his warm-up in the preceding days of the meet, and was hitting 100s pace much quicker than he ever had before, and knew there that he was in the perfect position to win the gold medal and beat three world record holders: Matt Biondi (100), Michael Gross (200) and Artur Wojdat (400).

Duncan Armstrong went through the final (31:00), being in a perfect position to ride the hip of Biondi for 150 meters and run him down on the final 50. Viewing himself as a true outsider, Armstrong felt all the pressure was on the three world record holders, especially with Biondi chasing Mark Spitz’s seven gold medal tally.

Armstrong also went over the difficulties of trying to rebound from life after swimming (47:30) and adjusting to working without the same intensity that requires preparing for an Olympic gold medal. He tried bringing the Olympic intensity to every aspect of his life and it was doing more harm than good, causing him to have to look within himself and make a change.

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