She also set another Australian and Commonwealth record in the 200-metre butterfly. A fortnight later, Ford lowered her record to 8:31.30. At the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Ford won gold in the 200-metre butterfly, silver in the 400-metres and 800-metre freestyle, bronze in the 200-metre freestyle and 4x100-metre freestyle relay. In 1979, Ford missed the Australian Championships in order to concentrate on her final year of high school. At the Soviet Spartakiad Games later in the year, she won three golds in the 200-metre butterfly and 400- and 800-metre freestyle. She then moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in the United States, to train and compete under Don Talbot on the American domestic circuit. Ford won the 800- and the 1500-metre freestyle, and was second in the 200- and 400-metre freestyle at the 1980 Australian Championships to gain selection for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Under public pressure from the Government of Australia, particularly Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who as the patron of the Australian Olympic Committee to boycott the Games in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Ford chose to attend the games, competing in the 200-metre butterfly and the 400- and 800-metre freestyle. In the 200-metre butterfly, she qualified fastest, ahead of East Germany's Andrea Pollack and Ines Geissler. In the final the East Germans turned the tables, with Geissler and Sybille Schonrock leading Ford home into the bronze medal position. She qualified third fastest in the 400-metre freestyle, but the strategy undertaken by the East German trio coaxed her into deviating from her pre-race plan. She finished fourth. Later, in her final event, the 800 m freestyle, Ford had qualified behind another East German, Ines Diers. Ford made a slow start, lying in seventh at the 100-metre mark before snatching the lead from Diers at the 200-metre mark and extending it to a 3.65-second victory winning Olympic gold medal and claiming the Olympic Record. After returning to Australia, Ford attempted to break the 16-minute barrier in the 1500-metre freestyle, but was thwarted, firstly by a timing failure, then by New South Wales, who did not want her to make her second attempt in Queensland, and finally disqualification on her third attempt for incorrectly withdrawing from a previous race. Frustrated, she retired from swimming in 1981. In 1981, Ford attended the University of Wollongong until taking up a scholarship at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where