Michelle Jan Ford MBE is a former Australian long distance freestyle and butterfly swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won a gold medal in the 800 m freestyle at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She was the only non Soviet bloc female swimmer to win an individual gold medal at the boycott-marred games. She also set two world records in her career, and was the first Australian woman to win individual Olympic medals in two distinct specialized strokes. Ford, the third of four children grew up in the seaside Sydney suburb of Sans Souci, familiar with water, as her father Ian, a dentist, had narrowly missed Olympic selection as a yachtsman. After learning to swim at the age of 6, she made national headlines when she swam the 100yd freestyle in 61.5s, at the age of 12, the fastest time ever set by a swimmer at such an age. In January 1976, at the New South Wales Age Championships, at the North Sydney pool, she broke six state and three national records at the age of 13, two of which had previously been held by triple Olympic gold medallist Shane Gould. 

July 15th, 1962 in Sydney (Age 61) as Michelle Jan Ford