Olympic Gold Medalist Lenny Krayzelburg Offers Clinic and Competition as part of the Russian Celebration

Olympic Gold Medalist Lenny Krayzelburg  Offers Clinic and Competition a part of the Russian Celebration

From October 12 – 20, there will be a series of events in Baltimore marking the The Associateds’ Together: 25 Years After Operation Exodus, Russian Festival. JCC Swimming is happy to be hosting two of these events.

On October 13, from 9am – 12:30pm, the Team will be hosting a competitive swim clinic at the Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC.  This will be a great opportunity for swimmers to work with one of the great heroes of the sport.

Four-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, Lenny Krayzelburg, will be running the Lenny Krayzelburg Swim Clinic (Clinic). The Clinic will be comprised of numerous activities. After check in for the Clinic at 8 am, Krayzelburg will:

 ·         Conduct an in-water session at 9 am

·         Present to swimmers and parents, followed by Q&A at 10:45 am

·         Sign autographs (so be sure to bring something you want his signature on) at 11:45 am

(Registration for this event will be very limited; swimmers can register online at http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e87ctdit6fd8f705&llr=vrc5xpeab

If you have multiple swimmers who want to sign up at the same time, or if you have difficulties with the registration system, email the swim team at swimteam@jcc.org.)

Later in the afternoon (at approximately 2:30pm, also at the Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC) Krayzelburg will be doing a presentation on his life; on the struggles of his family moving to the United States; and most importantly how swimming helped provide grounding and structure when he really needed it. This is a free community event.

·         His presentation will start at roughly 2:45 

·         A question and answer session follows until 3:15

·         The pool activity begins about 3:30

·         Krayzelburg may sign more autographs and pose for  photographs following the event if time allows

If you want to learn more about Operation Exodus, there is a list of the events being held here in Baltimore at: http://www.associated.org/page.aspx?id=264031 

Background and History:

In October of 1988, on the eve of a planned summit between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev, almost 300,000 people marched on the National Mall in Washington to demonstrate solidarity with people who were being persecuted for their religious beliefs under the Soviet Union.

In the wake of this historic assembly, campaigns were started around the United States to raise funds to pay for “freedom flights” to help people leave the Soviet Union to move to countries where they could find freedom from religious persecution.  In the Baltimore Area, the Associated Jewish Community Fund raised over $1 Billion towards this effort.  (Think Schindler’s List  but on a much larger scale.)  Because of this effort, more than 1.5 million people were able to leave the Soviet Union to try to find a better life.

In 1989, one of the people who was “saved” by this effort was a 14 year old boy who left with his parents from Odessa and ended up in Los Angeles.  The impoverished family received a “new arrival” scholarship to the local JCC where he started swimming for Steve Becker (now a Swimming Hall of Fame member).  Ten years later, that boy – Lenny Krayzelburg –represented the USA in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where he won three gold medals.

Krayzelburg is certainly an icon for young athletes, not only worldwide, but here in greater Baltimore as well. Despite knee and shoulder surgeries that kept him out of most competition during the three years following the 2000 Games, Krayzelburg came back to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics and won his fourth gold medal. However, in 2005 after his swimming career was finished, Krayzelburg ventured into a new career as a business owner starting LK Swim Academy, a learn to swim program for children.

 In 2008, Lenny Krayzelburg’s Swimming Academy program partnered with Jewish Community Centers Association to have LK Swim Academy become an official signature program of JCCA. In the last four years the academy has grown to seven different locations around the country with continued demand for more openings in the future.

An important part Krayzelburg’s work is his Lenny Krayzelburg Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides high-quality learn-to-swim programs for youth previously excluded from the sport due to social and economic barriers and limited access to safe pools. Programs are conducted in under served communities and address the need for teaching children to be water safe.

Krayzelburg was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2011.