Shirley Frances Babashoff (born January 31, 1957) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in multiple events.

[3] Beginning around the age of 13 in 1970, Shirley swam at Golden West College in Huntington Beach for a company-sponsored team, Phillips 66, under coach Ralph "Flip" Darr through her junior year in High School.

She continued to work with the Nadadores and Schubert as her primary source of training until the 1976 Olympics, and led the team to win the AAU Short Course Championships in April, 1975.

In the 400 meter freestyle, finishing fourth behind the German competitor Guden Wegner, Shirley missed taking a bronze medal by only .48 seconds.

Although Babashoff never won an individual gold medal in Olympic competition, she is still regarded as one of the top swimmers in history, and is most vividly remembered for having swum the anchor leg on the gold-medal winning 4×100-meter freestyle relay team, in its victory over the doped up, steroid-plagued 1976 East German women, in what is widely acknowledged as having been one of the single most memorable races in the entire history of women's swimming.

[7] The East German team of Kornelia Ender, Petra Thumer, Andrea Pollack and Claudia Hempel was heavily favored to win the race.

[10][11] After the 1976 Olympics, Babashoff was occasionally referred to as "Surly Shirley" and described as a "sore loser" by the media because of her public accusations of drug cheating by the East German swimmers.

She was later proven correct: most East German athletes were using performance-enhancing drugs, substantiated by investigators in the PBS documentary, "Secrets of the Dead: Doping for Gold.

"[2][12] By 1991, after the fall of communism and German reunification, several media reports vindicated Shirley's accusations of doping, including the widely circulated New York Times, that featured the headlines, "Coaches Confirm That Steroids Fueled East Germany's Success in Swimming".

[2] In the mid to late-90's, when German news agencies released more detailed information confirming that the former East Germany had a state-run doping program for their 1976 women's swimming team and other athletes, the American Olympic committee considered giving "upgrade medals" to Americans who had lost to East German athletes confirmed of taking banned substances.

[5] She had a son in 1986 whom she raised alone, and became a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service in Orange County, California in the Huntington Beach Area.