Many Olympic athletes and representatives from diverse backgrounds and life experiences since the early 1900s have called Culver City their home in recognition of a community that embraces the 2024 Paris Olympic Games theme: “Worlds we share, where individuals from a variety of cultures and backgrounds reach new heights together...”
Embodying that message of Olympic spirit and sportsmanship, Culver City High School alumnus Isaiah Jewett and a Botswana challenger helped each other to their feet after they collided in the 800-meter semifinal in the 2020 Tokyo Games. The two Olympians draped arms over each other’s shoulders and completed the race together.
Melbourne 1956 Games distance runner Laszlo Tabori (1935-2021), a Hungarian refugee who broke the world record in the 1500 meters, lived a few doors from Culver City High School. The acclaimed running coach, the third runner to break the four-minute mile, was the Screenland 5K Honorary Chairperson during the Culver City Centennial in 2017.
Five-time Olympic Czech discus thrower Olga Fikotová Connolly (1933-2024), whose romance with American hammer thrower Hal Connolly broke Cold War barriers, raised her athletic family in the Lindberg Park neighborhood after she and Hal won gold medals for their respective countries in the 1956 Melbourne Games. She was the flag bearer for Team USA in the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics.
London’s 2012 Olympic Games 400-meter hurdles champion LaShinda Demus of Culver City’s Blair Hills neighborhood will receive her belated gold medal on August 9 in front of the Eiffel Tower a dozen years after the race winner was disqualified for doping. She set up a GoFundMe page to assist with family travel expenses. Demus, the first American to win the Olympic 400-meter hurdles, is the Centaur girls track and field coach and a Screenland 5K trainer.
Culver City High School alumni Mickey and Susie Hall watched their son, Ryan, compete in the Beijing (2008) and London (2012) Olympic marathons. Ryan, the U.S. half-marathon record holder, is the only American to run a sub-2:05 marathon.
The Culver City Parks and Recreation Dept. offered Billy Mills, an unknown runner of Sioux Indian ancestry, a last opportunity to qualify for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics with an invitation to run in the city’s Western Hemisphere Marathon. Mills advanced by finishing second in the annual race and then broke the 10K Olympic record in the 1964 Tokyo Games by outpacing world-record holder Ron Clarke of Australia. The Los Angeles Times called it one of the “greatest upsets in Olympic history.”
Culver City Maintenance Division employee Bobby Cons won the Western Hemisphere Marathon four times and qualified to run the marathon in the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Co-founded by Culver City Parks and Recreation Dept. Director Syd Kronenthal and William Schroeder of Culver City’s Helms Athletic Foundation, the Western Hemisphere Marathon was the first race to allow women to compete with men, producing three women’s world bests, and the first to host a wheelchair division.
The Screenland 5K is run annually in Kronenthal’s memory. He chaired the national AAU long-distance running committee for many years and conducted a 5K alongside the local marathon.
For five decades, Kronenthal championed many Olympians, mentored Olympic officials, and welcomed hundreds of international athletes into Culver City, many from Asia, Australia and Africa. He introduced paralympic basketball, track and field, and tennis programs that will be showcased Aug. 28-Sep. 8 in Paris.
At Kronenthal's urging, gold medalist decathlete Rafer Johnson, who carried the torch in the 1984 LA Games, housed the Southern California Special Olympics program in Culver City’s Fox Hills for many years.
Kronenthal also convinced Howard Hughes to allow Peter Ueberroth and the 1984 LA Games to convert a hangar at the present Costco site into the Olympic Committee headquarters. The LA Marathon ran through Culver City.
Soviet Union émigré Alla Svirsky was named to the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame after coaching 15 national champions as director of Culver City’s LA School of Gymnastics. She coached the Women’s Rhythmic Gymnastics Team for three Olympics, including the 1984 LA Games.
Culver City gymnasts Isamu and Makoto Sakamoto Olympic trained 1984 Olympic gold medalists Peter Vidmar and Tim Daggett of UCLA at Culver City’s Veterans Auditorium.
Olympic diver Pat McCormick performed exhilarating lunges at the annual summer Culver City Aquacade. She was the first athlete to win gold medals in springboard and platform at two Olympic Games (1952 Helsinki, 1956 Melbourne).
Culver City Municipal Plunge lifeguard Wally Wolf won Olympic swimming golds in London (1948) and Helsinki (1952) and competed on the USA water polo team in Melbourne (1956) and Rome (1960).
Swimmer Maya Dirado, daughter of Culver City High School alumnus Ruben Dirado, won two gold medals, a silver and a bronze in the 2016 Rio Games.
Culver City Swim Club standout Dara Torres won 12 medals in five summer Olympic Games. In 2008, at age 41, she was the oldest swimmer ever to make the US Olympic team.
National and World champion pairs ice skaters Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner, who qualified for the Innsbruck (1976) and Lake Placid (1980) Winter Olympics, began their budding ice-skating careers at the Culver City Ice Arena.
Misty May-Treanor, who teamed with Kerry Walsh to win Olympic beach volleyball gold medals in 2004, 2008, and 2012, played at Culver City parks and playgrounds while her mom, Barbara May, worked at the Culver City Recreation Division.
Two Culver City volleyball coaches trained dozens of US Olympic volleyball athletes. UCLA men’s volleyball coach Al Scates was a recreation leader at Blanco Park, and Bruin women’s coach Andy Banachowski lived across from Lindberg Park.
Tom Mills of Culver City supervised more than 1,200 official Olympian-related activities and raised funds for Olympic hopefuls and numerous charities while leading the Southern California Olympians and Paralympians of the US Olympic Committee.
Distinguishing two Olympic communities 5,600 miles apart, boats carrying delegations of Olympians will parade down the Seine on July 26 at the opening ceremonies of the Paris Games, and runners will flow down the cinematic streets of the Heart of Screenland, March 2, on Oscar Sunday in the Screenland 5K.
Show your glitz, glamour, glory & Olympic gold in the Screenland 5K. Sign up at runsignup.com/race/ca/culvercity/screenland5K
PHOTO CREDITS—
WesternHemisphereMarathon.jpg: Photo by James Ruebsamen
Runners.jpg: Photo by IPic Sports
GeorgeMarsh6.jpg: Photo by George Marsh
Runners2.jpg: Photo by George Laase
DashLaugh.jpg: Photo by George Laase
CAPTIONS:
WesternHemisphereMarathon.jpg:
Culver City’s Western Hemisphere Marathon was an Olympic Games qualifying race.
Runners.jpg GeorgeMarsh6.jpg Runners2.jpg DashLaugh.jpg:
Runners show their Olympic spirit in the Screenland 5K.
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Reader Comments(1)
CCHS1962 writes:
Mike: You did admirable research for this article but you neglected to mention Joe Faust, a Culver City High School grad who competed in the high jump at the 1960 Olympics. Joe was the youngest, and shortest (at 6 feet tall) to clear 7 feet in the event. He was the first Olympian from CCHS. I think he still lives in the area and is a parasailer. Still a role model. Younger Culver City students would find his story inspiring. Please interview him if you can.
10/22/2024, 7:45 am