Architecture

Architecture’s Guthrie breaks world record for breaststroke

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

One of the School of Architecture’s best-kept secrets is that among its faculty is a 46-year-old Rice alumnus who recently broke the world record for the 200-meter breaststroke in the Masters World Swimming Championships at Stanford University.

Jeff Fitlow

David Guthrie ’90, the G.S. Wortham Assistant Professor of Architecture, broke the world record in the 200-meter breaststroke at this summer’s Masters World Swimming Championships.

David Guthrie ’90, the G.S. Wortham Assistant Professor of Architecture at Rice, earned a world-champion title with an astonishing 2:31.42 on the clock, breaking the record of 2:34.14, which he also set just a year ago. He also brought home a silver and two bronze medals from the championships, where 5,500 swimmers from
83 countries and six continents competed.

It’s hard to believe that someone who has broken 16 masters world records and held world records in three age groups simultaneously didn’t become serious about swimming competitively until he got to college, but as an adolescent living in Newfoundland, Canada, during the “prime swimming years,” Guthrie didn’t have much choice.
“We lived in a small fishing town when I was 8 to 12 years old,” he said. “It was freezing cold, and there was no swimming pool. I got a very late start.”

Guthrie made up for lost time when he enrolled at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., in 1977 and joined the swim team. During his four years there he racked up a number of honors, including national champion and all-American titles in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Capitalizing on his collegiate victories, Guthrie continued to excel in U.S. swimming competition during the early ’80s, qualifying for multiple national and world events, including the 200-meter breaststroke in the 1984 Olympic Trials.

He didn’t have time to compete while working on a master’s in architecture at Rice during the latter half of the ’80s, but he plunged in again during the next decade and became the 1992 Masters World Champion for the 50-meter breaststroke with a time of 29.42 — a world record.

Over the past 16 years Guthrie has claimed 28 national titles and been named Masters All-American in all but two of those years. Although he will soon be half a century old, he has no interest in staying out of the water.

“When I can no longer achieve another lifetime best, I’ll try to see how close I can stay to my peak performance,” Guthrie said. He’s been amazed and inspired by swimmers in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. The fastest 50- and 60-year-old men are besting the personal bests they set when they dominated the college ranks in their early 20s. “I’m swimming faster now than when I was in college,” Guthrie said. “We’re seeing a redefinition of the sport in terms of what’s possible. Who would have guessed that a 90-year-old guy could swim the 100-meter backstroke in 1:45? As we get older, we’re still discovering what we can do. It’s all a big experiment. I’m my own guinea pig to see what I can do.”

For practice, Guthrie swims from 6 to 8:30 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and from 3 to 6:30 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday. Most recently he has been training with the U.S. club team at the University of Houston. “Swimming with 18-year-olds every day gets me into shape,” he said. “The age difference melts away in the water.” He noted, however, that he now needs double the amount of recovery time from training for a peak swim. “When you’re 46, your body doesn’t bounce right back.”

Guthrie’s enthusiasm for swimming is matched only by his enthusiasm for architecture. He teaches a design studio for graduate students in the fall and one for undergraduates in the spring. Currently he is compiling material for a display of his work on a Web site that the Architectural League of New York is creating to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Young Architect’s Forum, a juried competition that Guthrie won in 1997.