Therese Alshammar

Malin Therese Alshammar (born 26 August 1977) is a Swedish swimmer who has won three Olympic medals, 25 World Championship medals, and 43 European Championship medals. She is a specialist in short distances races in freestyle and butterfly. She is coached by former Swedish swimmer Johan Wallberg. She is the first female swimmer and the third overall (after Lars Frölander and Derya Büyükuncu) to participate in six Olympic Games.

Biography

Alshammar was born in Solna in 1977, daughter of 7th placed Olympic breaststroke swimmer Britt-Marie Smedh and Krister Alshammar. She started swimming on the team of Sundbybergs IK.

At the beginning of her career she was a backstroke swimmer and in 1991, the year Alshammar turned 14, she won her first national short course title in the 50 m backstroke at the 1991 Swedish Short Course Swimming Championships. The year after, when she was 14 years old, she won her first national long course senior title, 100 m backstroke at the 1992 Swedish Swimming Championships representing Järfälla SS.

Alshammar was a part of the Swedish team at the 1993 European Championships in Sheffield, finishing fourth in the 100 m backstroke final, and in the inaugural World Short Course Championships in Palma de Mallorca. In Palma de Mallorca she placed ninth in the individual 100 m backstroke, swum the prelims in the silver medal winning 4×100 m freestyle team and came fourth in the 4×100 m medley alongside breaststroker Hanna Jaltner, butterfly swimmer Ellenor Svensson and Linda Olofsson on the freestyle leg.

She first appeared on the international scene after the 1994 World Aquatics Championships where she made the semifinals in the 100 m backstroke. In the 1996 Olympics, she participated in this event and reached the semifinals.