Great Bridge High has produced standout athletes in a variety of sports, including a handful of first-round draft picks in baseball.
But one of its greatest athletes made a splash in swimming.
Thompson Mann was the first swimmer to break the 1-minute mark in the 100-meter backstroke. He set a world record of 60 seconds flat at the 1964 Olympic trials. Then, at the Tokyo Olympics later that year, he was the lead on the 400-meter medley relay with a 59.6-second leg. Mann, Bill Craig (breaststroke), Fred Schmidt (butterfly) and Steve Clark (freestyle) finished in 3 minutes, 58.4 seconds to win the gold medal.
“I don’t know which was better, when he was born and put in my arms or when he won the gold medal,” Thompson’s mother, Ethelyn Mann, told Virginian-Pilot reporter Russell Borges in a postrace telephone interview.