USADSF Board member, Kevin Smith, the chair of the USADSF Hall of Fame Committee is pleased to announce one of the five 2022 Hall of Fame inductees.
Jeffrey James “Jeff” Float, OLY is the first athlete to win a gold medal in both the Deaflympics and the Olympics. At the 1977 World Games for the Deaf in Bucharest, Romania, Float won a gold medal and set a Deaf World Record in every event he entered en route to an American record ten gold medals. Following this performance, Float qualified for the 1980 USA Olympic Swimming Team, but didn't get a chance to compete due to the United States' boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Float captained the US Olympic Swimming team to a gold medal in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay, beating the West Germany quartet (who had held the World Record) in one of the greatest Olympic races of all time, setting a new World Record in the process.
At the 1984 Olympics, Float also finished fourth in the men’s 4x200m freestyle. In addition to the 1984 Games, Float also collected gold in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay at the 1982 World Aquatics Championships and silver in the men’s 400m freestyle at the 1978 World Aquatics Championships.
Float’s illustrious career also includes a Congressional Gold Medal of Honor and a 26-year stint on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports that spanned from 1985 to 2011. In 2000, the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf named Float Deaflympian of the Century. In 2014, Float was inducted into the Sacramento Sports Hall of Fame.
Float is a graduate of the University of Southern California and currently resides in California, where he coaches swimming at the Arden Hills Athletic & Social Club, which has produced 33 Olympic medals, including 22 gold medals, and more than 200 World and American Records.