Mark Lyndon Tonelli (born 13 April 1957), whose birth name was Mark Lyndon Leembruggen, is an Australian former backstroke, butterfly, and freestyle swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won a gold in the 4×100-metre medley relay at the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a makeshift butterfly swimmer in the self-named Quietly Confident Quartet. Tonelli unofficially led the relay team and was an athletes' spokesperson who fought for the right of Australian Olympians to compete in the face of a government call for a boycott to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Tonelli took up swimming due to his asthma, and quickly came to prominence. Selected to represent Australia at the 1973 World Championships, he came sixth in the 200 m backstroke at the age of 16. He won his first Australian titles in 1974 in the 100 m backstroke and 200 m butterfly and went on to the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, where he won his first major international race, the 100 m backstroke, and took silver in the 200 m backstroke. In 1975, Tonelli won his only individual medal at global level, a silver in the 200 m backstroke at the World Championships in Cali, Colombia. In 1975, Tonelli enrolled at the University of Alabama in the United States, studying and competing in the collegiate sport system. He was selected in both backstroke events for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, but struggled and missed the medals in both events. During his stay in America, Tonelli set times that would have placed him among the world's leading swimmers, but he was expelled from the 1978 Commonwealth Games team for breaches of discipline.
After finishing his American university career, Tonelli returned to Australia and gained selection for his second Olympics. Having cleared the political obstacles, Tonelli was given a heavy schedule of six events: both backstroke races, the 100 m freestyle and butterfly, and two relays. He made little impact in the individual events, only reaching one final. Australia lacked butterfly swimmers and Tonelli was versatile, so he swam the stroke in the medley relay. He performed above his previous record, posting a time fast enough to win silver in the corresponding individual event and helping Australia to an unexpected win. Upon returning to Australia, Tonelli retired with eleven individual Australian championships in three different strokes.
Early years Tonelli was born Mark Lyndon Leembruggen into a working-class family in Ipswich, Queensland. His father Lyndon was a blue-collar worker of Dutch origin and his Irish mother Muriel worked in the Queensland Department of Industrial Relations. Muriel was pregnant with twins, but miscarried one of the babies and gave birth only to Mark. The family moved to the northern outback mining town of Mount Isa, where Lyndon worked as a miner. There, Muriel left her husband and married Renato "Ray" Tonelli, an Italian immigrant labourer. Still a toddler, Tonelli and his stepfather left the town and returned to Brisbane.Tonelli, pp. 20–23. He adopted his stepfather's surname, but did not officially change his name until he was 18.Tonelli, p. 58.
Tonelli was effectively an only child; his half-sister was not born until he was 14. A decade later, he discovered two half-sisters from his biological father's remarriage.Tonelli, p.22. His family moved around frequently due to his stepfather's work, before settling permanently in Brisbane.Howell, p. 238. Tonelli's family had no history of athletic success, and had little knowledge of swimming, but his mother encouraged him to take up the sport to ease his asthma. In his first year, Tonelli came third in his age group at Western Districts Club, prompting his mother to send him at age nine to John Keating—a swimming coach who had guided several swimmers to national selection–at the Centenary Pool in the hope that he could improve to Olympic standards. Tonelli said the reality was that he could hardly swim at all.Tonelli, p. 25. By the age of 10, Tonelli was regularly winning at school carnivals and at 11, came seventh in the 100 m freestyle in his division at the Queensland Championships, before winning the event the following year. Tonelli rates his win over Stephen Holland, the future 1500 m freestyle world champion and world record holder, in a 200 m freestyle race at a schoolboys' carnival as his favourite race.Tonelli, p. 36. Holland was to break his first world record just a few months later.Andrews, pp. 212–213.
Keating motivated Tonelli by showing him the best times recorded by American boys of the same age, as documented in Swimming World Magazine. Unaware that the Americans were swimming in 50 yd pools, roughly 10% shorter than those in Australia, Tonelli could not understand his inability to match and better their times.Tonelli, pp. 27–28. He said that his greatest motivation was the desire to impress his parents.Tonelli, pp. 31–32.
National and international debut In 1973, at the age of 15, Tonelli competed in his first Australian Age Championships in Hobart, winning the 100 m and 200 m freestyle, and the 200 m backstroke. These results allowed him to swim at the preliminary qualifying trials for the 1973 World Aquatics Championships, where he managed four fourth placings. However, the selectors held another set of trials just before the World Championships, which offered swimmers a final chance to gain selection. Tonelli said "Everyone, except me, knew it was a ploy simply to keep the team on its toes".Tonelli, p. 39.
Upon returning to Brisbane after the first round of trials, Tonelli tore rib cartilage while participating in judo at high school. The pain of the injury restricted him to swimming backstroke for four months, and his times steadily improved during this period under the guidance of John Rigby at the Valley Pool. At the final selection event, he came second in both the 100 m and 200 m backstroke behind Olympic gold medallist Brad Cooper to earn his international debut. At the World Championships in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, he came sixth in the 200 m backstroke behind East Germany's Roland Matthes, who set a world record. Tonelli self-deprecatingly noted that "I didn't get to see him [Matthes] swim in the final, because I was in the same race five sets of speedos behind".Tonelli, p. 43.
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.
Commonwealth gold Tonelli was selected for the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he had his first medal success at international level. He won gold in the 100 m backstroke, where he won his heat comfortably before setting a Games record of 59.65 s in the final. Tonelli was second behind Cooper in the 200 m backstroke, finishing in a time of 2 m 9.47 s, more than three seconds in arrears.Howell, p. 240. He claimed a silver in the 4 × 100 m medley relay as Australia were thwarted by Canada despite setting a national record, and was eliminated in the heats of the 200 m butterfly.
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.Tonelli, pp. 56–57.
1976 Olympics and move to US college system
After the World Championships, Tonelli accepted a swimming scholarship from the University of Alabama to train under John Gambril, having rejected offers from Stanford and Harvard. Tonelli was almost killed before ever swimming for the university, suffering a mid-air parachute malfunction during an activity with the campus skydiving club.Tonelli, pp. 68–71. Tonelli eventually completed a BA in Communications and Film.
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.
In Montreal, Tonelli came eighth fastest in every round of the 100 m backstroke. He came second in his heat in a time of 58.53 s, making him the eighth of sixteen qualifiers for the semifinals. He then scraped into the 100 m final as the slowest qualifier—0.01 s ahead of fellow Australian Glenn Patching—after finishing fourth in his semifinal in a time of 58.14 s. He came eighth in the final in a time of 58.42 s and did not threaten the medals; Naber of the United States won in a time of 55.49 s. As Kerry outpaced Tonelli to finish seventh in the event, he was selected ahead of Tonelli for the backstroke leg in the 4 × 100 m medley relay.Howell, pp. 236, 240.
In the 200 m event, Tonelli came second in his heat to qualify sixth fastest for the final. There he came fourth and missed the medals— which were swept by the Americans—by 1.82 s. He was 3.98 s behind Naber, who broke the world record and became the first person to break two minutes for the event. Australia struggled in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay, eliminated in the preliminary round after finishing third in their heat, and ninth overall. Tonelli swam the second leg in a time of 1 m 55.94 s.
Tonelli returned to Alabama after the Olympics and intensified his training regimen, He recalled that "The coach really supplied me with the environment to improve. I got used to pressure. You had to stand up and race in dual meets almost every other weekend, no matter how you felt. In Australia you are lucky if you get two top meets a year." In 1977, he won the 100 m backstroke at the US Open Championships at Mission Viejo, becoming one of the few Australians to win a US title.
Expelled from Australian team Tonelli continued in the United States in 1978, recollecting "I really hit my straps", reporting that he had swum world records in time trials at training. Because he was in the United States, he was allowed to qualify for the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada by swimming fast times in events in North America. Tonelli raced in five events at the Canada Cup held in Edmonton, winning four. During a drunken party after the competition, Tonelli and some fellow swimmers decided to steal three giant flags from poles in the city centre: those of Canada, the City of Edmonton, and Alberta. In the process, Tonelli fell off the staff and was hospitalised, his arm put in plaster.Tonelli, pp. 79–82.