Mark Tonelli

Quick Facts

Full Name	Mark Tonelli
Occupation	Swimmer
Date Of Birth	Apr 13, 1957(1957-04-13)
Age	67
Birthplace	Ipswich
Country	Australia
Birth City	Queensland
Horoscope	Aries

Mark Tonelli Biography

Mark Tonelli is one of the most popular and richest Swimmer who was born on April 13, 1957 in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. Mark Lyndon Tonelli (born 13 April 1957) who’s his birth name is Mark Lyndon Leembruggen, is an Australian former butterfly, backstroke and freestyle swimming champion of the 1970s and 1980s who took home a gold medal in the 4×100-meter Medley relay at the 1982 Moscow Olympics in the role of a fictitious butterfly swimmer with the self-named Quietly Confident Quartet. Tonelli did not officially lead the relay team , and was an athlete’s representative who advocated for the rights of athletes from Australia to participate in spite of an order from the government for boycotts in be a protest to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Tonelli was selected to compete in at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he was the first to win a medal on an international scale. He took the gold medal in the 100m backstroke, winning his heat easily before setting the Games record for 59.65 seconds during the championship. Tonelli finished second to Cooper in the 200 m backstroke winning in 2m 9.47 seconds, which was more than three seconds behind. Tonelli was awarded a silver medal in the 4 100 m Medley Relay. Australia were defeated by Canada despite setting a new national record. He was also eliminated in the finals of the 200 butterfly in the 200 m distance.

In 1975, Tonelli won the 100 m backstroke, 200 m backstroke and 200 m butterfly events at the Australian Championships. Although he won more individual titles than in the previous year, his times were slower; he completed the distances in 59.70 s, 2 m 10.50 s and 2 m 10.00 s respectively. Tonelli was also part of the Queensland team that successfully defended their medley relay title. Tonelli was thus selected for the 1975 World Championships in Cali, Colombia. He qualified fastest for the 200 m backstroke final and had planned to pursue an aggressive strategy to attack from the start. However, he was advised to swim conservatively in the first half of the race by Australian coach Terry Gathercole so that his main rivals Matthes and John Naber would not be able to draft behind him in the early stages. The tactic backfired and Tonelli ended with the silver medal. He had swum faster in the second half of the race—something exceedingly rare in top-level swimming and an indication of strategic error—and felt that he had too much unused energy left at the end of the race. Tonelli vowed that from then on, he would always back his judgment and race strategy.

After enrolling at Alabama, Tonelli’s parents paid for him to return home for the 1976 Australian Championships, which were the selection trials for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Tonelli won the 100 m backstroke in a time of 58.35 s but was relegated to silver in the 200 m event by Mark Kerry. Along with Kerry, Tonelli was selected for both backstroke events and the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay.

Tonelli started swimming due to asthma and soon rose to the forefront. Selection was made for the team representing Australia in the 1973 World Championships, he came sixth in the 200-meter backstroke at the age of 16 years old. He was the first to win Australian championships in 1974 in the backstroke 100 meters as well as the 200 m butterfly. He proceeded to his first Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, in which he took home his first major race on the international stage in the 100-meter backstroke and was awarded bronze in 200 backstroke at 200 metres. He also took home his sole individual medal at the global level, winning a silver medal for the 200-meter backstroke in the World Championships in Cali, Colombia. The year 1975 saw Tonelli began his studies as a student at the University of Alabama in the United States, studying and participating in the collegiate sports system. He was chosen for the backstroke and the synchronized swimming events of during the 1976 Summer Olympics at Montreal but failed to qualify and was not awarded silver medals for both races. While at home in America, Tonelli set times that would have put him among the top swimmers, however he was removed in 1978 from the Commonwealth Games team for breaches of discipline.

Mark Tonelli Net Worth

Mark Tonelli is one of the richest Swimmer from Australia. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Mark Tonelli 's net worth $5 Million. (Last Update: December 11, 2023)

The 4 100-meter Medley relay was the center for the Tonelli’s Moscow campaign. It was always taken in America United States since its inception during the Olympics in the 1960 Games and their boycott of the event had opened up the competition. Australia’s most successful performance came in the opening race in which it beat Japan and claimed silver. The only time Australia had been awarded an award was in 1964 when it took bronze. Its previous race in 1976 resulted in Australia eliminated from the heats. Australia was considered to be an opportunity to win a medal however they were not considered as the most likely threat being compared to Sweden, Great Britain and the Soviet Union the most heavily anticipated teams. The team of hosts included the silver medallists from the 100m backstroke and breaststroke. Their butterflyer came fifth. their freestyler came fourth in the event. The British had Duncan Goodhew, the breaststroke gold medalist in Sweden, while Sweden’s butterflyer as well as backstrokers had won their respective events . Additionally, their freestyle swimmer was third in the 100 meters. On paper, the team of Australia was against the Swedish team. Neil Brooks, the freestyler was 14th in the individual event following asthma attacks, and Peter Evans was the only person to win a medal in the distance, taking bronze in the 100m breaststroke. Kerry was eliminated from the finals of the backstroke, and Tonelli was competing as a fake butterflyer. In addition to the pressure, was the reality that Australia had not won any gold medals in the 1996 Olympics in any sports which meant that the Australian public was waiting for their first win after in 1972 at the Games held in Munich. In the Olympics, Australia were ranked 7th out of 13 participating countries.

In 1973 at the age of 15 years old, Tonelli took part for the first time in Australian Age Championships in Hobart in Hobart, where he won the 100 and 200 m freestyles, as well as the 200 backstroke. The results enabled Tonelli to participate in his preliminary trials to qualify for 1973’s World Aquatics Championships, where Tonelli was able to secure four fourth-place finishes. But the selection committee conducted another round of tests just prior to the World Championships, which offered swimmers the chance to be selected. Tonelli declared “Everyone, except me, knew it was a ploy simply to keep the team on its toes”.

Tonelli won his first Australian titles in 1974, claiming both the 100 m backstroke and 200 m butterfly; it was his first race in the latter stroke at senior national level. He completed the victories in times of 59.55 s and 2 m 7.30 s respectively. Tonelli also claimed victory as part of the Queensland teams in the 4 × 200 m freestyle and the 4 × 100 m medley relays—it was the first time that Queensland had won the former race. In total, Tonelli had claimed gold medals in three different strokes at his first Australian Championships.

Height, Weight & Body Measurements

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After retiring from competition, Tonelli did television commentary for the 1984 and 1988 Olympics in Los Angeles and Seoul respectively. Since 2004, he has been a swimming commentator on Sky News Australia. Outside swimming, he worked at a spastic centre for children in Brisbane in the 1980s before opening his own swimming school. He also completed a series for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on their Lifestyle TV program and produced movies on swimming and child development. Tonelli later set up his own computing business, which he ran for three years. He also served as a sports administrator, completing a term on the Australian Sports Commission in its early years in the 1980s. One policy that he proposed was the creation of an athletes’ appeal tribunal similar to the Court of Arbitration for Sport so that “officials are now held accountable for their actions”. He cited his expulsion from the Australian team as his motivation for having an appeals mechanism. As of 2007, Tonelli was working as a real estate agent and corporate speaker. He married his wife Lee in the late 1990s.

Facts & Trivia

Mark Ranked on the list of most popular Swimmer. Also ranked in the elit list of famous people born in Australia. Mark Tonelli celebrates birthday on April 13 of every year.

Tonelli arrived in Moscow facing a heavy schedule: he was nominated in the 100 m freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, the 200 m backstroke and the 4 × 100 m medley and the 4 × 200 m freestyle relays. Tonelli came third in his heat of the 100 m freestyle to qualify fourth with a time of 52.04 s. However, he swam slower in coming fifth in his semifinal in a time of 52.17 s to miss the final by 0.26 s. Overall, he was ranked 10th, but if he repeated his Australian record of 51.80 set at the selection trials, he would have come sixth.