About Vicki Draves
Born on 31st December 1924, Vicki Draves was a famous competitive diver from the USA. At the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London, she won gold medals in both platform and springboard diving. He also became the first woman to be awarded gold medals for both the ten-meter platform and the three-meter springboard. Additionally, she became the first American woman to win two gold medals in diving, and the first Asian American to win Olympic gold medals. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1969 and was selected for the year's Most Outstanding Alumnus of City College of San Francisco in the year 2005. Unfortunately, the summer of 2020 has been marred by the fact that the Tokyo Olympics had to be postponed until 2021. However, today's Google Doodle, which honors the Filipino American Olympic champion Vicki Draves, offers us the chance to bask in the kind of transcendent athletic glory that's beloved by sports fans all around the world. According to Olympic.org, she succeeded at the peak of his sport to overcome racism and poverty in his youth. Google honored its determination and success with a Google doodle in memory of its first day that won the gold medal at the Olympics. On 3rd August 2020, she was honored with a Google Doodle in recognition of her achievements. "Because of my racial background, he could not bring me as a member of the Fairmont Hotel Swimming and Diving Club," recalled Manalo-Draves in 1999. This inspired Patterson to start a "special club" in order to bypass the Fairmont's rules.
Vicki Draves was born in San Francisco, California, in the USA. Her birth name/real name was Victoria Manalo Draves. Her nationality was American and her ethnicity was Mixed of American-Philippine-English. Her race is White. She belonged to Capricorn Zodiac sign and her religion was Christian. She was born to Philippine chef and musician Teofilo Manalo and English maid Gertrude Taylor. Her parents met and married in San Francisco. She also has three siblings, twin sister; Connie, older sister; Frankie, and a younger brother, Sunny who died as a child. At the small age, she took summer swimming lessons from the Red Cross, paying five cents for admission to a pool in the Mission District. Additionally, she played badminton, basketball, and softball in high school. As of her education, she graduated from Commerce High School on Van Ness Avenue in 1942 and worked a temporary civil service job in the Army Port Surgeon's office to add to the family's meager income.
Source: @boldproduction
Cause of Death of Vicki Draves
At the age of 85, Vicki died on 11th April 2010 in Palm Springs, California, the USA. She died from pancreatic cancer aggravated by pneumonia. She was interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, California.
Vicki Draves's Diving Career
- It was Jack Lavery who brought Vicki in the field of diving at the age of sixteen. She was then introduced to Phil Patterson, swimming coach of the Fairmont Hotel Swimming and Diving Club.
- Born as Victoria Manalo Draves, she later changed her name to Vicki Taylor to be accepted in Patterson's school because of racial discrimination and prejudice for being a Filipino.
- She the swimming program at the Crystal Plunge in North Beach headed by Charlie Sava and was assigned Jimmy Hughes as her coach who guided her to a third-place finish in her first national AAU diving competition at the Indiana national meet in 1943.
- Later on, she was introduced to his coaching friend, Lyle Draves by Sammy Lee. Lyle Dravs ran the swimming and diving program at the prestigious Athens Athletic Club in Oakland.
- With Lyle, she began attaining training which added platform diving to her springboard diving repertoire.
- She then commuted to Los Angeles and placed second and third at the Outdoor Nationals.
- She also won the National Tower Diving Championship (10-meter platform), in 1946, 1947 and 1948.
- Prior to competing in the 1948 Olympics, she won a total of five United States diving championships.
- She won her first springboard title in the London Summer Olympics on 3rd August 1948 and followed up by winning the gold medal in the 10-meter platform on 6th August, becoming the first woman to win both titles.
- She also appeared in a "Life" layout in the year 1949, being named one of the magazine's top two U.S. athletes at the 1948 Olympics.
- She then turned professional, joining Larry Crosby's "Rhapsody in Swimtime" aquatic show for her pro debut at Soldier Field in Chicago as of 1948.
- Moreover, she performed in the L.A. Coliseum with headliner Esther Williams and did the General Motors convention in Detroit.
Source: @brokeassstuart
- She also toured the U.S., Canada, and Europe with Buster Crabbe's "Aqua Parade."
- Later after her long career, she retired from diving after performing regularly in the Coachella Valley's El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs and at the Shadow Mountain Resort & Club in Palm Desert.
- Besides this, she was an advocate for the Filipino Education Center when the second wave of Filipino immigrants came to America and largely settled in the South of Market district.
- She also joined sprinter Jesse Owens, football player Tommy Harmon and race car driver Sam Hanks at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas to help raise $700,000 for the City of Hope National Medical Center in the year 1968.
- On 27th May 2005, she received her award and spoke at the commencement ceremonies of City College at the SF Masonic Auditorium as well as she received a resounding ovation from the 2000 graduating students in attendance.
Vicki Draves's HUSBAND, Lyle Draves
Vicki Draves was a married woman. She married her coach; Lyle Draves on 12th July 1946. The duo operated a swimming and diving training program at Indian Springs in Montrose in the early 1950s and later moved the program to Encino. The couple later stayed in Tarzana for 35 years, raising four sons; David, Jeffery, Dale, and Kim; to be skilled divers. She also worked as a secretary while her husband remained a coach and swimming director. Again, they moved to Palm Springs, California in the year 1995. Prior to her death, the duo was living a happy life without any disturbances. Her sexual orientation was straight.
Source: @outlet.historicimages.com
Vicki Draves's Net Worth 2020
Starting her career as a diver from the age of sixteen, she had achieved a great height in her career. She had won many gold medals throughout her career and left the remark to the beginners who are in the first stage of diving career. The net worth of Vicki Draves is estimated to have $130 Million as of 2020. She was earning a considerable amount of salary from her career before her death. She was living a cool lifestyle with her earnings. In October 2006, a two-acre park (one acre per gold medal) in San Francisco was named Victoria Manalo Draves Park in her honor. It was on the same site, on Folsom and Sherman streets, that she attended the erstwhile Franklin Elementary School, four blocks away from where she was born and raised. Her major source of wealth was from a diving career.
