Roberto Delgado Martillo (born April 3, 1975) is an American-Ecuadorian former swimmer who specialized in freestyle and butterfly events. A two-time Olympian (1996 and 2000), he holds numerous Ecuadorian records in both 100 and 200 m butterfly, and retains his dual resident status to compete internationally for his parents' homeland. While studying in the United States, Delgado has been listed as an all-time Top 10 performer in the 200 m butterfly for the

Arizona State Sun Devils The Arizona State Sun Devils are the athletic teams that represent Arizona State University. ASU has nine men's and eleven women's varsity teams competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of ...

Career

Early years

Delgado was born in Mission Viejo, California,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

to Ecuadorian parents, giving him a dual residential status. Coming from an athletic pedigree, he grew up most of his life in an aquatic field. His older brothers David and Eddie swam for the

Mission Viejo High School Mission Viejo High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in Mission Viejo, California, United States, as part of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. The school has served the area since 1966. Students within ...

team, while his cousin Jorge Delgado, Jr. competed in the 200 m butterfly (2:04.60) at the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972 ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, finishing behind Americans

Mark Spitz Mark Andrew Spitz (born February 10, 1950) is an American former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion. He was the Lists of Olympic medalists#Medalist with most medals by Olympiad, most successful athlete at the 1972 Summer Olympi ...

Gary Hall, Sr. Dr. Gary Wayne Hall Sr. (born August 7, 1951) is an American former competition swimmer, three-time Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder in five events. He is also an ophthalmologist. Background Hall attended Indiana University, wh ...

, and

Robin Backhaus Robin James Backhaus (born February 12, 1955) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder. Backhaus represented the United States as a 17-year-old at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.Sp ...

. His other sibling Felipe Delgado was primarily a water polo player in high school, before he officially became an elite sprint freestyle swimmer. Delgado and his brother Felipe shared a sibling tandem in the sport, when they both competed together for Ecuador at two Olympic games. Delgado started his sporting career at age five. He and his siblings were encouraged by their mother to take swimming lessons because of his grandfather's tragic drowning. Being natural on the water in his early childhood, Delgado began competing in numerous age group meets across

Mission Viejo Mission Viejo ( ; corruption of ''Misión Vieja'', Spanish for "Old Mission") is a commuter city in the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, United States. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest master-planned communities e ...

and nearby areas. Delgado attended

, where he swam for the Mission Viejo Nadadores. Coming to the sport more reluctantly, he did not get serious about swimming until reaching his junior season. Delgado accepted a partial

athletic scholarship An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...

to attend the

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in t ...

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as s ...

, where he played for the

swimming and diving team under head coach Mike Chasson. Serving as the school's team captain, he posted a sixth-fastest time of 1:48.74 in the 200-yard butterfly at the 1997

Pacific-10 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Divis ...

Championships. In the spring of 1998, he graduated from the University with a bachelor's degree in marketing.

International career

Delgado made his first

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...

ian team, alongside his brother Felipe, at the 1996 Summer Olympics in

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. He failed to reach the top 16 final in the

100 m butterfly 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

, finishing forty-fourth with a time of 56.29. A member of the Ecuadorian squad, he placed fifteenth in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay (3:27.77), and sixteenth in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay (7:54.37). On May 24, 1999, Delgado's swimming career had been overshadowed by a doping suspicion. He received a temporary suspension or a one-month ban from

FINA FINA (french: Fédération internationale de natation, en, International Swimming Federation, link=yes) (to be renamed as World Aquatics by ) is the international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for administer ...

after testing positive for the banned stimulants pseudophedrine and

cathine -norpseudoephedrine, also known as cathine and (+)-norpseudoephedrine, is a psychoactive drug of the phenethylamine and amphetamine chemical classes which acts as a stimulant. Along with cathinone, it is found naturally in ''Catha edulis'' (khat ...

at the Short Course World Championships in Hong Kong. At the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 ( Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from ...

inSydney, Delgado decided to drop all freestyle relays, and experiment instead with a butterfly double. He achieved

B-standards of 56.36 (100 m butterfly) and 2:04.53 (200 m butterfly) from the

Pan American Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is hel ...

Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. In his first event, 200 m butterfly, Delgado placed forty-third on the morning prelims. Swimming in heat one, he picked up a third seed by almost five seconds behind Chinese Taipei's

Tseng Cheng-hua Tseng Cheng-hua (; born September 25, 1980) is a Taiwanese former swimmer, who specialized in butterfly events. He is a single-time Olympian (2000), and a top 8 finalist in both 100 and 200 m butterfly at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Kor ...

, outside his entry time of 2:08.18. Three days later, in the

, Delgado challenged seven other swimmers in heat two, including Guam's 28-year-old Daniel O'Keeffe, and Bosnia's three-time Olympian Janko Gojković. He rocketed to a fifth-place finish and forty-sixth overall in a time of 56.07, but could not hold off a challenge from O'Keeffe, who touched the wall ahead by a small fraction of a second.

References

External links

Roberto E. Delgado
at U.S. Masters Swimming {{DEFAULTSORT:Delgado, Roberto 1975 births Living people Ecuadorian male swimmers Olympic swimmers for Ecuador Swimmers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 1999 Pan American Games Swimmers at the 2000 Summer Olympics Pan American Games competitors for Ecuador Ecuadorian male freestyle swimmers Male butterfly swimmers American people of Ecuadorian descent Sportspeople of Ecuadorian descent Sportspeople from Mission Viejo, California Arizona State Sun Devils men's swimmers