Claudia Poll
Claudia Maria Poll Ahrens (born 21 December 1972 in Managua) is a Costa Rican swimmer of German descent.
She competes in the 200 m to 800 m freestyle swimming.
At the 1996 Summer Olympics she won a gold medal in the 200 meter freestyle.
She is the only gold-medalist Costa Rica ever had.
At the 2000 Summer Olympics she won two bronze medals, in the 200 meter and 400 meter freestyle.
Claudia Poll began swimming in 1979 under coach Francisco Rivas.
No article about Claudia Poll can be complete without mentioning mentioning that she has tested positive for an illegal, performance-enhancing steroid and was suspended from competition for four years, according to an announcement this afternoon by the International Amateur Swimming Federation (FINA) in Lausanne, Switzerland. 6 June 2002"
Ironically, Poll's older sister, Sylvia, was a silver medalist at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, beaten to the wall by East Germany's Heike Friedrich. After the collapse of Communism, East German Secret police (Stasi) files revealed that Friedrich — along with all other East German Olympic swimmers — had systematically been doped as a matter of national policy.
Related pages
change- Silvia Poll, sister and also swimmer
- Costa Rica at the Olympics
- Swimming World Magazine Jun 2002
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_sport_(P)#cite_note-46