Fanny Durack: Who Was She?
Fanny Durack was an Australian swimmer and the first female to win an Olympic gold medal for Australia. She won the 100 meters freestyle event at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, setting a new world record in the process.
In addition to her Olympic success, Durack won two silver medals in the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, held eight world records during her career and set several national records.
Furthermore, she is remembered as a pioneer of women’s sport and is widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest swimmers ever.
And, she achieved all this even though Australia didn’t even want to send her to the Olympics at first, because she was a woman!
Fanny Durack: Her Early Life
Fanny Durack was born in Sydney in 1889 and won her first swimming competition in 1906, at the age of 17.
Although she was an outstanding swimmer, the Australian National Swimming Association banned women from partaking in competitions in which men were competing, for modesty reasons.
Despite these limitations, she continued to compete, and quickly became an Australian swimming star.
See more stories of amazing trailblazing Australian women
Fanny Durack: 1912 Stockholm Olympics
In 1912, leading up to the Stockholm Olympics, the International Olympic Committee announced the addition of a new event: a 100-metre freestyle for women, the first swimming event for women.
Durack and her biggest competition, Mina Wylie, also from the Sydney swimming club, saw themselves as natural candidates to represent their country in the Olympics.
They were both the best swimmers in Australia at the time, and they would compete against each other for first and second places in every event.
Unfortunately, the Australian Swimming Association didn’t see things the same way.
Not only did they announce that they wouldn’t sponsor their participation – the women were prohibited from participating, because they were women, and women competing against men was immodest.
The ban that was imposed on them, and prohibited them from representing Australia in the Olympics, caused a public outcry.
One newspaper wrote: “if there is any athlete in Australasia who should go to the great contests, it is this young Sydney swimmer,’ and, listing her constellation of 56 medals and 100 trophies, noted, ‘If this formidable array is not a record that Australia should be proud of in one of her daughters, then there is no such thing as national pride“
Fanny Durack: Raising Money To Compete in the Olympics Through A Public Campaign
As part of the public outrage, a public campaign was started (before GoFundMe was even invented!) to raise money to send Durack and Wylie to Stockholm – whether the National Swimming Association liked it or not.
The message was: if they didn’t want to pay to send women to the Olympics, we don’t need them, we can do it without them.
The money was raised quickly, and the National Swimming Association had no choice but to cancel the ban.
Fanny Durack: Winning Gold & Setting A World Record in the 1912 Olympics
The public outcry only made Durack arrive at the Olympics even more determined.
Durack didn’t just win the gold medal, she also set a new world record – and beat her runner-up by three whole seconds.
Coincidentally – or not -her runner-up was her Australian competition, Wylie.
It turned out that despite the fact that Australia initially didn’t want to send women to the Olympics, it came out of the events with the gold (Durack) and the silver (Wiley) medals.
All in all, Australia returned from the Olympics with 7 medals. With the exception of one tennis medal, they were all from swimming events.
Fanny Durack: Swimming Career After the 1912 Stockholm Olympics
Durack kept her position at the top of the international swimming charts, even after the Olympics.
She set 12 world records between 1912 and 1918.
The Australian record that Durack set during those years was 52 seconds faster than the men’s record at the time.
Fanny Durack: Retirement
In 1920, shortly before the Antwerp Olympics, she underwent a surgery to remove her appendix.
While recovering from the surgery, she became ill with typhus and pneumonia.
She didn’t have any choice but to cancel her participation in the Antwerp Olympics, which prevented her from winning any additional Olympic medals.
She retired from competitive swimming a year later.
After she retired, she became a swimming coach.
Fanny Durack: Her Death and Legacy
Durack died of cancer in 1956.
in 1967, she was inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame.
In 2000, the Olympics came to Sydney, and one of the streets in the city’s Olympic Park was named Sarah Durack Avenue, in her honor.
Not bad for someone Australia initially didn’t want to send to the Olympics.
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