Mark Spitz won those Olympic gold medals by beating the world's best swimmers, including those of the USSR. He famously did it while sporting a large brushy black mustache... something of interest to the Soviet Union coaching staff.
Spitz was not without a sense of humor. One USSR coach approached him and asked if the 'stache slowed him down at all, and Spitz replied the opposite. He said the big broom mustache blocked the water from his mouth, and thus made breathing easier, and that he considered this to be an important advantage.
Of course, Spitz was making it up. And he must have had a little fist-pumping moment of triumph in the following year of international competition, when the Russians appeared at the next meet, all sporting big thick Spitz-style mustaches.
The team photo is the 1973 Russian olympic swim team, all kitted out in their lip filters.
