[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9639-S9640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       SALUTE TO MARY MOORMAN RYAN CALDWELL AND ANN HARDIN GRIMES

 Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the last 2 weeks have been filled 
with triumphs and struggles for United States athletes competing in the 
Centennial Olympics in Atlanta. We have all

[[Page S9640]]

watched and waited with baited breath for official scores and times to 
be posted and medals to be awarded. The Olympic spirit--brought to the 
United States through our athletes and the host city of Atlanta--has 
spread throughout the Nation.
  I rise today to recognize two great American swimmers from another 
Olympic time, whose Olympic ideals and spirit shone brightly even 
during the darkest days of modern Olympic history. Mary Moorman Ryan 
Caldwell and Ann Hardin Grimes qualified for the American Women's Swim 
Team to participate in the 1940 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. 
Scheduled to be held from July 20 through August 4, the Games were 
canceled because Nazi Germany occupied all of Western Europe and the 
Soviet Union invaded Finland.
  Mary and Ann swam the three-mile, the one-mile and the 880-yard races 
to qualify for the team and would have represented the United States in 
the 880-yard and 440-yard swimming freestyle races in Helsinki. They 
had been swimming together in friendly competition at the same club 
since 1933, and were coached by the same man, Bud Swain. The two 15 
year olds from Louisville, Kentucky never got the chance to go for the 
Olympic gold. But their spirit never faded.
  Still good friends today, Ann and Mary attended the Centennial 
Olympic Games in Atlanta together to cheer the 1996 United States 
Olympic swim teams to victory. Mr. President, Mary Moorman Ryan 
Caldwell and Ann Hardin Grimes are true representatives of the Olympic 
character in this country. Through the years as friends, swimmers, 
competitors, and Olympians, they have experienced it all--the hardship, 
the pain, and the disappointment, but most of all the triumph and the 
glory. I thank them for their contributions to their sport and to the 
Olympic spirit.

                          ____________________