Gérard Blitz

Gérard Blitz competed at four Olympics Games as a swimmer and water polo player, appearing four times in water polo and three times in swimming. Blitz won four Olympic medals, three in water polo in 1920, 1924, and 1936, and adding a bronze in the 1920 100 metre backstroke swimming. In 1921 Blitz set a world record of 5:59.2 for the 400 metre backstroke, a mark which lasted until 1927. A Jewish athlete, he was one of the few Jews to win a medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Gérard Blitz was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1990.

Blitz’s older brother, Maurice Blitz, competed alongside Gérard in water polo at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, winning silver medals both times. Maurice later became an international referee, conducting the Olympic final in 1932, and was a member of the Belgian Olympic Committee and swimming federation. Maurice Blitz’s son, also Gérard Blitz, never competed at the Olympics, but became known during World War II as a resistance fighter with the French Resistance. After the war, Gérard Blitz became famous when he founded a vacation resort named Club Méditerranée, opening the first resort on Majorca, which later became franchised with the name shortened to Club Med. Gérard Blitz, the younger, also studied yoga, and became secretary and then president of the European Union of Yoga from 1974 until his death in 1990.