Duncan ARMSTRONG

Duncan Armstrong started swimming at age five and made his international début at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, where he won the 400 m freestyle gold medal in dramatic fashion by surging from behind, after trailing by nearly 25 m at the midway point, also adding a 4x200 free relay gold. In 1986, Armstrong competed at the World Championships, but failed to medal.

At the 1988 Olympic Games, Armstrong was not considered a medal favorite in the 200 and 400 freestyles, ranked only 46th in the 200 that year, after ranking 25th in 1987. Known as a back-end swimmer, he swam as close to Matt Biondi's lane markers as possible, hoping to draft in the American's wake. With 50 m to go, Armstrong was in third place, but then surged, first past Sweden's Anders Holmertz and then Biondi in the final five metres to claim the gold medal in a world record 1:47.25, which was considered one of the biggest upsets in Seoul.

Four days later, Armstrong also qualified for the 400 free final. He was once again slow out of the blocks, turning last at the 100, and was still next-to-last at 300 metres, but he finished very quickly, swimming the last 100 in 55.02 to claim silver behind East German Uwe Daßler, who won with a world record of 3:46.95. In fact all the medal winners swam better than the previous world record owned by bronze medalist Artur Wojdat and this race was later named “The Race of the Century.”