setting a new world record of 2:21.9 and the 200m Breaststroke AAU National Indoor Championship. The Australian Olympic Federation granted him an exemption from the Australian Championships and selected him for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He trained with fellow team member John Marshall at Yale University under coach Robert Kiphuth while the rest of the Australian team trained in Townsville. Davies arrived in Helsinki as the favourite after setting the 200-yard breaststroke (short course) world record earlier in the year, but after a poor time trial a week before the Games, he was forced to restrict his training to under a kilometre per day and sleep for 20 hours daily. Davies was not the fastest qualifier in the heats but broke the Olympic record set by Jerry Holan in the prelims. Swimming in his even-paced style, Davies trailed by more than 2 seconds at the 100m mark, but overhauled his rivals, pipping the United States' Bowen Stassforth by 0.3s to reset his new Olympic record and tie the existing world record (long course) time of 2m 34.4s set by Herbert Klein of Germany who was third. Davies, Stassforth, and Klein were the only three swimmers to better 2:35 in history in the 200 m breaststroke (long course) prior to the bifurcation of the stroke in 1953. Legal career Davies graduated from the UCLA School of Law in 1959. He became a U.S. citizen in 1960. On 22 April 1986, Davies was nominated by U.S. president Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States District Court for the Central District of California vacated by Cynthia Holcomb Hall. Davies was confirmed by the United States Senate on 6 June 1986, and received his commission on 9 June 1986. In January 1991, Davies found that the no obscenity clause in National Endowment for the Arts grants violated the Constitution's Free Speech Clause. In April 1996, Davies overturned the state conviction of Charles Keating for his involvement in the savings and loan scandal due to flawed jury instructions. In June 1998, Davies mediated the $400 million settlement which Merrill Lynch agreed to pay for its role in causing the Orange County, California bankruptcy. In 1993, Davies presided over the federal retrial of four Los Angeles Police Department officers for the beating of Rodney King. Two officers, Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell were convicted. The United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines recommend the