Tracie Ruiz-Conforto

Tracie Ruiz-Conforto was the first Olympic star in the relatively new sport of synchronized swimming. In 1984, as Tracie Ruiz, she won gold medals in both the solo event and, with Candie Costie, the duet. She then retired and married a former Penn State football player. Ruiz-Conforto took up bodybuilding and competed briefly in that sport, but returned to synchronized competition in 1987. At the 1988 Olympics, she competed only in the solo event, earning a silver medal. At the Pan-American Games she won a team gold in 1979, solo and duet golds in 1983, and a solo gold in 1987. She was 1982 World Champion in solo, and also won six U.S. Championships in the solo and four in the duet. The Conforto’s son, Michael Conforto, later played major league baseball, and in 2015 played for the New York Mets in the World Series, making him only the third person (after Ed Vosburg and Jason Varitek) to play in a Little League World Series, College Baseball World Series (for Oregon State Univ), and the Major League World Series.