Allison Schmitt, Jack Bauerle Lead Class of 2027 Inductees Into International Swimming Hall of Fame
The International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) is thrilled to announce that it will host its 62nd Annual Honoree Induction Ceremony in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA on Saturday, April 10, 2027. We are proud to announce our truly international Class of 2027, which will induct 12 Honorees from 11 different countries from around the globe.
This year’s ISHOF Honorees include: HONOR SWIMMERS: Allison Schmitt (USA), Mireia Belmonte Garcia (ESP), Pernille Blume (DEN), Kosuke Hagino (JPN) and Federica Pellegrini (ITA); OPEN WATER SWIMMER: Thomas Lurz (GER); for the first time-ever: HIGH-DIVER: Orlando Duque (COL); WATER POLO PLAYER: Debbie Handley (AUS); ARTISTIC SWIMMER: Svetlana Romashina (RUS); COACH: Jack Bauerle (USA); PIONEER: Paul Beulque (FRA); and PARALYMPIC SWIMMER: Daniel Dias (BRA).
*Federica Pellegrini was selected in 2025 but was unable to attend her induction. She will be officially inducted in 2027.
HONOR SWIMMERS
Mireia Belmonte Garcia (ESP)
Mireia Belmonte Garcia is a three-time Olympian, 2008, 2012 and 2016. She has four medals in Olympic competition: In Rio, 2016, she earned one gold in the 200m butterfly and a bronze in the 200 IM. In 2012, London, she won two silver medals, the first in the 800m freestyle and the second in the 200m butterfly.
In World Championships competition ranging from 2010 to 2017, both long and short course, she has eight individual titles, in the fly, IM and freestyle. In all combined World Aquatics competitions in her career, she has won a total of 92 medals, 40 gold, 35 silver and 17 bronze. Many consider her the greatest Spanish swimmer of all time.
Pernille Blume (DEN)
Pernille Blume is a three-time Olympian who is best known for winning the gold medal in the 50-meter freestyle at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Blume shocked the world in Rio with her time of 24.07 seconds. This victory was Denmark’s first Olympic swimming gold medal in 68 years.
She added two more Olympic bronze medals to her collection, the first at the same Games, while anchoring the 4 x 100 medley relay, and the second, in Tokyo, in 2021, in her signature event, the 50-meter freestyle. Blume retired from competitive swimming in 2022 at age 28. In June 2024, she was appointed to the World Aquatics Bureau, where she continues to give back
to all aquatic sports.
Kosuke Hagino (JPN)
Kosuke Hagino, of Japan, is a two-time Olympian, 2012 and 2016, who specialized in the individual medley and 200-meter freestyle, but was also talented enough to compete in nearly every event. He is a four-time Olympic medalist, winning gold in the 400 IM and silver in the 200 IM at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. In 2012, at the London Games, Hagino won two bronze medals, one in the 400 IM and the second in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay.
Hagino has a total of 26 medals in international competition, nine gold, 12 silver and six bronze. Hagino is one of only two Asians to have been voted World Swimmer of the Year (2014).
Allison Schmitt (USA)
Allison Schmitt is an American Olympian, specializing in the freestyle events. She is a four-time Olympian 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and a 10-time Olympic medalist, winning four gold, three silver, and three bronze medals. Schmitt has won 25 medals in major World Aquatics international competitions: 13 gold, nine silver, and three bronze medals.
Schmitt has become an advocate for mental health. She is working to try and de-stigmatize mental health struggles. Schmitt believes “Get help when you need it” and it’s okay to “Ask for Help.” She shares positive thoughts on her social media, “It’s okay to not be okay!”
HONOR OPEN WATER SWIMMER
Thomas Lurz (GER)
Thomas Lurz is a three-time Olympian (2004, 2008, 2012), winning a silver in London in 2012, and a bronze medal in 2008 in Beijing in the 10k open water event. He is a 15-time World Champion in open water events, including the 5k, 10k and 25k. Lurz is a three-time men’s 10k European Swimming Champion.
He was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame in 2019. He was named Swimming World Open Water Swimmer of the Year five times, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2013.
HONOR DIVER
Orlando Duque (COL)
Orlando Duque will be the first “high diver” ever inducted into ISHOF. If any diver embodies the spirit of cliff/high diving, it must be Orlando “The Duke” Duque. He is a Columbian High Diving champion and considered a legend in the sport. With an extraordinary natural talent, Orlando has won 13 world titles in total: nine Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series events, the first ever FINA High Diving World Champion (2013), two-time FINA High Diving World Cup (2014 and 2015) and the first ever overall champion of Red Bull Cliff Diving.
He has also been immortalized in the film 9 Dives, which includes the highest jump of his career to date: a 34m descent off a bridge in Italy. Today, Duque is the Chairman for the Technical High Diving Committee for World Aquatics.
HONOR WATER POLO PLAYER
Debbie Handley (AUS)
Trailblazer Debbie Handley was a pioneer of women’s water polo in Australia and she was selected on the first Australian women’s team in 1976 — widely regarded as the first women’s international team, playing against the USA in Hawaii. She accrued 93 caps for Australia during the next 13 years, the final 10 years (69 games) as the national captain, leading the Australians in two World Championships campaigns, a FINA silver medal as a demonstration event in 1982 and a FINA gold medal in 1986 — the first official World Championships.
Handley also competed in six FINA Women’s World Cup tournaments — at that time the pinnacle of women’s water polo pre Olympics and World Championships. She was awarded Australian Water Polo’s highest award, the Harry Quittner Medal.
HONOR ARTISTIC SWIMMER
Svetlana Romashina (RUS)
Svetlana Romashina, of Russia, became the most decorated artistic swimmer of all time when she won her sixth and seventh Olympic gold medals in duet and team at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. That was the cap to an extraordinary career where she won the duet and team events three times in a row (2012 , 2016 and 2020), a record unlikely to ever be duplicated.
In World Aquatics competition, Romashina never finished lower than silver, with an astonishing international record of 42 gold and three silver medals in her career. Romashina won four consecutive Olympic gold medals in the team competition at the 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. She also won the duet event in 2012, 2016 and 2020.
HONOR COACH
Jack Bauerle (USA)
Jack Bauerle reached the pinnacle of his coaching success in 2008, when he was chosen as the United States women’s team head coach for the Olympics, leading the American women to 14 medals, the most of any nation. Including Beijing, he has coached for Team USA at six Olympic Games, serving as a women’s assistant in 2000, men’s assistant in 2016 and 2020, and a personal coach in 2004 and 2012.
Serving as the Swimming and Diving Head Coach at the University of Georgia, Bauerle experienced unparalleled success in all facets of coaching life. National champions, All-Americans, record-setters, Olympians, Scholar All-Americans, and NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipients became the norm under Bauerle, who spent 43 seasons at the helm of the program.
HONOR PIONEER
Paul Beulque (FRA)
Paul Beulque’s greatest achievement was not merely coaching France to Olympic victory in 1924, but his lasting contribution was demonstrating that Olympic champions could be systematically created through an integrated program of municipal education, standardized pedagogy, scientific coaching, civic investment, and long-term athlete development.
The Tourcoing model transformed swimming instruction into an educational continuum extending from schoolchildren to Olympic athletes. Henri Padou, Ernestine Lebrun, and the 1924 Olympic water polo champions were not isolated successes but successive products of a deliberately constructed developmental system.
Recognition of Tourcoing’s achievements does not diminish Britain’s invention of water polo or Hungary’s subsequent dominance. Instead, it restores Paul Beulque to his proper place in aquatic history—as one of the first architects of the modern athlete-development system and a pivotal figure in the evolution of twentieth-century swimming and water polo.
HONOR PARALYMPIC SWIMMER
Daniel Dias (BRA)
Daniel Dias, is a four-time Brazilian Paralympic Swimmer, competing in the 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 Paralympic Games, winning a total of 27 Paralympic medals, 14 of them gold. In international competition, he earned a total of 100 medals, 78 gold,
14 silver, and eight bronze. Twenty-seven of these are from the Paralympic Games, 40 from World Para Swimming Championships and 33, all gold, were from Parapan American Games.
In addition to being Brazil’s and South America’s most decorated Paralympian in history, at the Tokyo Paralympics, he equaled Swedish shooter Jonas Jacobsson as the greatest male multi-medalist of all time.
The above press release was provided to Swimming World by the International Swimming Hall of Fame
