The Russian Rocket

Aleksandr (Alexander) Popov, known by a variety of nicknames - "Sasha", "The Russian rocket","Ice Man", and "Big Dog"- is a Russian former Olympic gold medalist swimmer and he is regarded as one of the greatest sprint freestyle swimmers of all time. Popov took up swimming at the age of eight at the Children and Youth Sports School, and at that time, he was afraid of water, but his father insisted on him taking swimming lessons. Popoc started out as a backstroke swimmer and switched to freestyle only in 1990 when he joined Gennadi Touretski's squad. He later moved from Russia to Australia to be with his coach.

Popov won his first Olympic medals in the 1992 Games in Barcelona, where he finished first in the 50 m and 100 m freestyle, and repeated his victories in the 1996 Games in Atlanta, becoming the first man to do so since Johny Weismuller. He presented his coach, G.Touretski, with his 1996 Olympic Games gold medal from the 100 m freestyle. He said "I have a title and I'm on the paper, but, you know, Gennadi hasn't gotten anything from Atlanta or from Barcelona. But I know how much this particular medal means for him, is worth for him.".

One month after the 1996 Games, he was stabbed in the abdomen with a knife during a dispute with three Moscow street ventors. The knife sliced his artery, grazed one of his kidneys and damaged the pleura. He required emergency surgery and spent three months in rehabilitation. A year later, in the 1997 European Championships in Seville, he successfully defended his 50 and 100 m freestyle titles.

Popoc competed at the 2000 Games in Sydney, but was touched out in the 100 m freestyle by Pieter van den Hoogenband, winning a silver medal. Popov also competed in Athens Olympic Games in 2004, without winning a medal (he was already 32 years old at this time) and retired shortly after these Games. His last great show was in the 2003 Barcelona World Championships where he made a clean sweep again of the men's 50 and 100 m freestyle events, citing that Barcelona would always be special to him, for it was there that for him, everything first began.

Popov was elected as a full member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in December 1999. He also represented the athletes on the IOC Sport for All Commission and was elected as one of seven athletes to the IOC Athletes' Commission by the athletes participating in the 1996 Games. Popov is an advisorto the Russian president in sports matters and a member of the Executive Committee of the Russian National Olympic Committee. Since 2004, Popov has been vice-president of the Russian Swimming Federation.

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