Nicole Lee Haislett (born December 16, 1972) is an American former competitive swimmer who was a three-time Olympic gold medalist, a former world and American record-holder, and an eight-time American national college champion. During her international swimming career, Haislett won twenty-two medals in major international championships, including fourteen golds. Early years Haislett was born in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1972. She was a "water baby"—she learned to swim at 18 months old. At the time, her parents merely wanted her to be comfortable in water, not intending that swimming would become her life focus. She began to train with the St. Pete Aquatics Club at the age of 6. Haislett attended Lakewood High School in St. Petersburg, where she swam for the Lakewood Spartans high school swim team, winning four Florida high school state championships in two years. As a 16-year-old high school junior, she won the 50-, 100- and 200-meter events at the U.S. Open Swimming Championships in 1989. At the 1990 U.S. Short Course Swimming National Championships, she won the national title in the 200-yard freestyle. College swimming career After graduating from high school, Haislett accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where she swam for coach Mitch Ivey and coach Chris Martin's Florida Gators swimming and diving team in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competition from 1991 to 1994. As a Gator swimmer, she won NCAA national titles in the 200-yard freestyle for four consecutive years from 1991 to 1994, the 200-yard individual medley in 1993, and the 500-yard freestyle in 1994, and was a member of the Gators' NCAA-winning relay teams in the 4×100-yard freestyle in 1993 and the 4×100-yard medley relay in 1994. She received twenty-eight All-American honors in four years—the maximum number possible. In four years of swimming, she was undefeated in Southeastern Conference (SEC) competition, and was recognized as the SEC Female Swimmer of the Year for four consecutive years from 1991 to 1994, and the SEC Female Athlete of the Year (all sports) in 1993 and 1994. She was the 1993–94 recipient of the Honda Sports Award for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding college female swimmer of the year. International swimming career Haislett was the first American woman to defeat a swimmer from East Germany in the 100-meter freestyle since the 1972 Summer Olympics; she did so at the 1990 Goodwill Games in