Franziska van Almsick (born 5 April 1978 in East Berlin, Germany) is a German swimmer. She won her first Olympic medals in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympic Games aged fourteen.
Her career begun at the SC Dynamo Berlin. She has the distinction of having the most career Olympic medals without ever winning a gold medal. Over her career, Van Almsick won ten Olympic medals, none of them gold. She ended her career at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004.
In 1993, she was named by Swimming World magazine as the Female World Swimmer of the Year. Her son Don Hugo was born on 7 January 2007.
Famous quotes containing the word van:
“Mrs. Van Daan’s grizzling is absolutely unbearable; now she can’t any longer drive us crazy over the invasion, she nags us the whole day long about the bad weather. It really would be nice to dump her in a bucket of cold water and put her up in the loft.”
—Anne Frank (1929–1945)