Olympic Champion Matt Biondi

Matt Biondi is living proof that dreams do come true — provided you are willing to work long enough and hard enough to achieve them. Matt is one of only 10 modern Olympic athletes to win eight or more Olympic gold medals. He won eight Olympic gold medals, two Olympic silver medals, and one Olympic bronze medal.

Matt Biondi has also won six World Championship gold medals, two silver, and three bronze. In the Pan Pacific Games, Matt has won two bronze medals, three silver medals, and nine golds. That is a lot of medals and he deserves every one of them.

Matt has loved swimming since early childhood but he didn't start swimming seriously and year-round until he was in high school. By the time he graduated, he was considered the top schoolboy sprinter in America. He set a National High School record of 20.40 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle. That was the beginning of a long an medal-filled career.

After high school Matt was offered a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, to swim and play water polo. The Berkeley swim team hrived with Matt as a member. Nobody expected it to happen, but Biondi qualified for a place on the 4 x 100 meter freestyle relay team for the 1984 Olympic Games that were held in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. team won the competition in record time and Matt was on his way to greatness.

When he swam with the 4 x 100 freestyle relay team in 1984, Matt hadn't yet graduated from college, so he returned to Berkeley.

Over the years, Biondi has set a total of 12 individual swimming records.

Biondi married Kristen in 1995 and today he lives in Kamuela, Hawaii. Matt teaches math, U.S. history, personal excellence, and swimming at Parker School, a small private prep school.