Vicki Draves Biography, Age, Death, Husband, Children, Family, Facts, Wiki & More

Short Biography

Vicki Draves was born on 31-12-1924 in San Francisco in the state of California, United States. She was an American Diver. She was the 1st woman who was a gold medalist at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Her full name was Victoria Manalo Draves.

Vicki Draves Complete Bio & Career

Draves did her early education from the local school of her hometown. She had a keen interest in Swimming since her childhood but at that time, she was very little and did not permit to join any Swimming Centre. When she turned into 10 years, she took swimming lessons from the "Red Cross" ( an American humanitarian organization that gives emergency help during floods, cyclone etcetera) at their Mission District branch. Along with swimming, she joined high school at Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California where she completed graduation in the field of commerce in 1942. During this period, Vicki also did a job at Surgeon's office, as a temporary civil service employee.

At the age of 16 years, she was professionally learned diving from Mr. Jack Lavery who met her with Phil Patterson. Mr. Phil was a coach of the "Hotel Fairmont Swimming and Diving Club". As she was a Filipino, therefore, because of racial discrimination, she modified her name to "Vicki Taylor so that she was accepted by Patterson's driving school. After that, she became part of Crystal Plunge in North Beach. Here, she continued her diving practice.

In 1943, when she was just 19 years old, Draves participated in AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) diving competition at Indiana national meet. later on, In 1944, she initiated training with her new coach named Lyle Draves in San Francisco Bay Area. Then, in1945, her father died and she started a job as a secretary in the Army's port surgeon office at San Francisco. During the ending of the second world war, Vicki moved to southern California and again started diving practice. In 1948, she took part in the Olympics and won 5 American diving championships. She won a gold medal for her performance in the 10m swimming platform. Her name was published in the USA's top magazine. After this, she earned fame and won several diving matches in her professional career.

In 1995, she lived in Tarzana and gave birth to her kids. She lived here for 35 years and her spouse became the swimming director and Draves worked as a secretary in the diving centre.