John Edward Anderson OAM (born 24 July 1939) is an Australian

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

and Olympic champion. He competed 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 States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, where he won a gold medal in the

Star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

class, together with David Forbes."1972 Summer Olympics – München, Germany – Sailing"
, databaseOlympics.com; retrieved 18 April 2008. He is the twin brother of sailor

Tom Anderson Thomas Anderson (born November 8, 1970) is an American technology entrepreneur and co-founder of the social networking service, social networking website Myspace, which he founded in 2003 with Chris DeWolfe. He was later president of Myspa ...

. In 1975, Anderson was part of the winning Soling class crew in the North American Championship and that same year, won the pre Olympic Regatta at Kingston. At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, he crewed the Australian boat which finished eleventh in the

soling The Soling is an open keelboat that holds the World Sailing "International class" status. The class was used from the 1972 Olympics (Kiel) until the 2000 Olympics (Sydney) as " Open Three Person Keelboat". Besides the Olympic career of the Soli ...

class. He was a member of the Australian Admirals Cup Team on ''Apollo II'' (1973), ''Love and War'' (1975), and ''Runnaway'' (1977). On 26 January 1987, Anderson was awarded the Medal of Order of Australia in "recognition of service to sailing". Anderson was inducted into the

Sport Australia Hall of Fame The Sport Australia Hall of Fame was established on 10 December 1985 to recognise the achievements of Australian sportsmen and sportswomen. The inaugural induction included 120 members with Sir Don Bradman as the first inductee and Dawn Fraser th ...

in 1999. On 14 July 2000, Anderson was awarded the

Australian Sports Medal The Australian Sports Medal is an award given to recognise achievements in Australian sport to commemorate Australian participation in major sporting events. Original recipients of the award included competitors, coaches, sports scientists, offi ...

for "services to sailing, particularly youth and offshore". In 2009 Anderson was inducted into the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame.

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* 1939 births Living people 1970 America's Cup sailors Australian male sailors (sport) Medalists at the 1972 Summer Olympics North American Champions Soling Olympic gold medalists for Australia Olympic medalists in sailing Olympic sailors of Australia Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia Sailors at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Star Sailors at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Soling Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees 20th-century Australian people {{Australia-yachtracing-bio-stub