Ann Lallande

Ann Lallande swam for Puerto Rico at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, competing in the 100 and 400 metre freestyles and the 100 metre butterfly. She is best known for her record at the Central American and Caribbean Games, winning a record 17 swimming medals, with five in 1962 and an amazing 12 in 1966. Of these, 10 were gold medals, all at the 1966 Games in San Juan, where she added two bronze medals in relays. Lallande also swam at the 1963 and 1967 Pan American Games,

Lallande was known in Puerto Rico as Anita Lallande. She attended Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, and then returned to the island, teaching junior high for two years. She then settled permanently in the mainland USA, first as a journalist in New York City. She wrote for Newsweek, Fortune, and Business Week magazines. She and her husband, Robert Giffen, a naval officer, later moved near the Washington, DC area, where she worked for McGraw-Hill’s Washington bureau. Lallande eventually became a consultant to Carlos Romero Barceló, Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner to Congress.