At the time of her death in 2002, Aileen Riggin Soule was the oldest living Olympian and a big name in sports, but big is simply the wrong word to describe her.

Born in Newport, Rhode Island, Aileen Riggin learned to swim at age 6 and started diving in 1919. At age 14, and only 4 feet 7 inches and 65 pounds, she competed at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium, where she became the youngest-ever gold medalist with her win in the 3-meter springboard event.

The competition was held outdoors in a moat filled with cold, muddy water. Riggin would later explain, “I kept thinking, the water is black and nobody could find me if I really got stuck down there. And if I were coming down with force, I might go up to my elbows and I’d be stuck permanently, and nobody would miss me and I’d die a horrible drowning death.”

Riggin went on to compete at the 1924 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, where she again medaled in the 3-meter springboard with a silver and became the first American to medal in both swimming and diving, with a bronze in the 100-meter backstroke.

In 1922 Riggin appeared in the first slow-motion and underwater coaching films ever made, and she turned pro-fessional in 1926. She became one of America’s first women sportswriters, writing articles for The New Yorker magazine and The New York Daily Post, and she starred in Billy Rose’s first Aquacade water entertainment ex-travaganza in 1937. In 1957 she moved to Hawaii with her husband, and she enjoyed a life-long friendship with the Hawaiian surfing legend and Olympian Duke Kahanamoku. At age 82 she set nine national age-group swim records, another six at age 86 at the World Masters Swimming Championships, and she continued to compete until age 91. She carried the flag at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games for the U.S. Team. Aileen Riggin Soule died in October 2002 at age 96.