Donna de Varona Pinto (née Donna Elizabeth de Varona; born April 26, 1947) is an American former competition swimmer, activist, and television sportscaster. Biography Swimming career In 1960, de Varona qualified for the U.S. Olympic swimming team at age 13. She already held the world record in her signature event, the 400-meter individual medley, but the event would not be added to the Olympic schedule until the 1964 Olympics. At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, De Varona swam for the U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the women's 4×100 freestyle relay, but she did not receive a gold medal because she did not swim in the event final. Four years later at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, after she was well on her way to setting a career total of eighteen world best times and world records, she won the gold medal in the women's 400-meter individual medley. She defeated the second-place finisher by a margin of six seconds and set an Olympic record. She also earned a second gold medal as a member of the world-record-setting U.S. team in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. De Varona appeared on the covers of Sports Illustrated, Look and Life magazines. In 1964, the Associated Press and United Press International voted de Varona the "most outstanding woman athlete in the world." De Varona retired from swimming and began her career in the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting. Professional life At the age of 17, she appeared on ABC's Wide World of Sports, becoming the youngest and one of the first women sportscasters for a national network. Her groundbreaking career has earned her an Emmy, two Gracies and the opportunity to cover a wide variety of sports events including 17 winter and summer Olympic games. In 2006, she was inducted into the Museum of Television & Radio's first class of fifty "She Made It" pioneers in media. While de Varona continued to pursue her television career, she also began her work in Washington, D.C. as an activist for sports and fitness opportunities for America's youth. Since her retirement from competitions in 1965, she has served five terms on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and has been appointed to Presidential Commissions under presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. A consultant to the United States Senate, de Varona took a leave of absence from her pioneering television career to