Danielle Villars (born 6 March 1993) is a Swiss swimmer who specialized in freestyle and butterfly events. She has won multiple Swiss titles and currently holds four national records in both freestyle and butterfly (100 and 200 m). Villars is a resident athlete for the Limmat Sharks, and is coached and trained by Dirk Reinicke. Villars made her international debut at the

2010 Summer Youth Olympics The 2010 Summer Youth Olympics, ) officially known as the I Summer Youth Olympic Games, and commonly known as Singapore 2010, were the inaugural edition of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG), an Olympic Games-based event for young athletes. Held ...

in Singapore, where she rounded out the finale to eighth place in the 100 (57.72) and 200 m freestyle (2:04.89). At the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

in London, Villars maintained her program by qualifying for two swimming events. She posted FINA B-standard entry times of 59.57 (100 m butterfly) from the

European Championships A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

in Debrecen, Hungary, and 2:01.47 (200 m freestyle) from the Olympic trials in

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. In the 100 m butterfly, Villars broke her own Swiss record of 59.42 to share a top seed in the second heat and a twenty-sixth-place tie with Spain's Judit Ignacio Sorribes on the first day of the Games. In the 200 m freestyle, Villars raced to second place on the first heat by 1.06 seconds behind Thailand's

Natthanan Junkrajang Natthanan Junkrajang (; ; born 13 April 1986 in Sing Buri, Thailand) is a Thai swimmer. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, she competed in the women's 100 and 200 m freestyle events. She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer ...

, outside her personal best of 2:03.55. Villars failed to advance into the semifinals, as she placed thirty-first overall in the preliminaries. Shortly after her first Olympics, Villars attended

Southern Methodist University Southern Methodist University (SMU) is a Private university, private research university in Dallas, Texas, United States, with a satellite campus in Taos County, New Mexico. SMU was founded on April 17, 1911, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, ...

in Dallas, Texas, where she was a biology major, and trained as a varsity swimmer for the

SMU Mustangs The SMU Mustangs are the sport, athletic teams that represent Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas, United States. SMU was founded in 1911 and joined the Southwest Conference, competing against Baylor Bears, Baylor, Rice Owls, ...

References

External links

Player Bio – SMU Mustangs

1993 births Living people Swiss female butterfly swimmers Olympic swimmers for Switzerland Swimmers at the 2012 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics Swiss female freestyle swimmers SMU Mustangs women's swimmers Swiss expatriate swimmers in the United States Swimmers from Zurich 21st-century Swiss sportswomen {{Switzerland-swimming-bio-stub