Mark Spitz and The Infamous Stache

The best swimmer that ever lived had a mustache (and he didn't wear a swimming cap.) Now that's a Champion!
Mark Spitz has the record for most Gold Medals by one person in a single olympics. He has 7.


Want to know how he did it?
read on....


Iconic Mustache During Olympics

In an era when other swimmers, male and female were shaving body hair, he swam with a mustache. When asked why he initially grew one he stated

"I grew the mustache because a coach in college
said I couldn't grow one."

Spitz said he originally grew the mustache as a form of rebellion against the clean-cut look imposed on him in college. “It took a long time to grow,” he said. It took four months to grow, but Spitz was proud of it, he decided the mustache was a "good-luck piece."

Mark Spitz is quoted as saying,

"When I went to the Olympics, I had every intention of shaving the mustache off, but I realized I was getting so many comments about it--and everybody was talking about it--that I decided to keep it. I had some fun with a Russian coach who asked me if my mustache slowed me down. I said, No, as a matter of fact, it deflects water away from my mouth, allows my rear end to rise and make me bullet shaped in the water, and that's what had allowed me to swim so great. He's translating as fast as he can for the other coaches, and the following year every Russian male swimmer had a mustache."

When he was asked why he shaved it off he responded "well, one - I'm not swimming anymore, two - it started to turn gray, and three - my wife had never seen me, nor my family, without the mustache... I'm happy [without it]."

(Straight from wikipedia, thanks Phelps, Jon Phelps that is.)

I'm all for Michael Phelps breaking the record for most GOLD, but can he do it without the Stache???