'Athlete of the Century' Fanny Blankers-Koen honored with Google Doodle on 100th birthday

(CNN)Dutch sprinter Fanny Blankers-Koen, who would have turned 100 on Thursday, has been honored with a Google Doodle. She stands alone as the first and only woman to have won four athletics gold medals at a single Olympics, in London in 1948. Blankers-Koen could easily have collected even more, but for a rule preventing female athletes from participating in more than three individual events.

As a consequence, she limited herself to the track, winning the 100 meters, 200 meters, 80 meters hurdles and in the 4x100 meters relay. But she also held world records in the long jump and high jump at the time.



Fanny Blankers-Koen: Who was the Dutch 'Flying Housewife' and how did she smash perceptions of women in sport?

The track star fought period sexism to triumph at first post-war Olympics Games

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/fanny-blankers-koen-athletics-1948-olympics-gold-medals-netherlands-google-doodle-a8322891.html

How Olympic ‘Flying Housewife’ Fanny Blankers-Koen Smashed Prejudices
The athlete still holds a record today.

Google paid tribute to Fanny Blankers-Koen on Thursday, commemorating what would have been her 100th birthday. The Dutch Olympic athlete, who died in 2004, was nicknamed “the flying housewife.” Blankers-Koen stunned critics and helped transform attitudes around female athletes.

Born near Baarn in the province of Utrecht, Blankers-Koen showed strong promise from an early age. At just 18 years old, she took sixth place in the high jump and fifth in the four sets of 100 meters relay at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. World War II looked like it would put a damper on Blankers-Koen’s ambitions — with the 1940 and 1944 games canceled, Blankers-Koen wouldn’t have the chance to compete in the Olympics for another 12 years. She had two children with her coach Jan Blankers in 1942 and 1945, while also building on her technique at the same time. In 1943, she set the world record for the 80-meter hurdles, high jump and long jump. Blankers-Koen turned her attention to the 1948 London games.

“I got very many bad letters, people writing that I must stay home with my children and that I should not be allowed to run on a track with — how do you say it? — short trousers,” Blankers-Koen told the New York Times in 1982. “But I was a good mother. I had no time for much besides my house chores and training, and when I went shopping it was only to buy food for the family and never to buy dresses. One newspaperman wrote that I was too old to run, that I should stay at home and take care of my children. When I got to London, I pointed my finger at him and I said: ‘I show you.’”

Show them she did. At 30 years old, the mother of a 6-year-old son called Jantje and a three-year-old daughter called Fanneke, she equaled the world record with 11.5 seconds in the 100-meter sprint and declared her intention to compete in that summer’s Olympics. She went on to win four gold medals in the 100 meters, 80-meter hurdles, 200 meters and four sets of 100 meters relay — the first woman to win four medals in one Olympics. Blankers-Koen’s memory continues. Beyond her trailblazing accomplishments, she still holds the record for the largest win in an Olympics 200-meter sprint, where she beat her opponent by 0.7 seconds.

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https://www.inverse.com/article/44171-fanny-blankers-koen-google-doodle


Fanny Blankers-Koen




Francina "Fanny" Elsje Blankers-Koen (26 April 1918 – 25 January 2004) was a Dutch track and field athlete, best known for winning four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She was a 30-year-old mother of two when she competed at the London Olympics. Her background and performances earned her the nickname the Flying Housewife. She was the most successful athlete at the 1948 Summer Olympics.

Having started competing in athletics in 1935, she took part in the 1936 Summer Olympics a year later. Although international competition was stopped by World War II, Blankers-Koen set several world records during that period, in events as diverse as the long jump, the high jump, and sprint and hurdling events.

Apart from her four Olympic titles, she won five European titles and 58 Dutch championships, and set or tied 12 world records – the last, pentathlon, in 1951 aged 33. She retired from athletics in 1955, after which she became captain of the Dutch female track and field team. In 1999, she was voted "Female Athlete of the Century" by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Her Olympic victories are credited with helping to eliminate the belief that age and motherhood were barriers to success in women's sport.[1]



Blankers-Koen streaks ahead in the 80m hurdles at the London 1948 Olympic Games -- an event she went on to win in record time.

More incredible still, Blankers-Koen -- nicknamed the "Flying Housewife" -- achieved all this at the age of 30 while pregnant with her third child. As an 18-year-old Blankers-Koen had been to the 1936 Games in Berlin, collecting the autograph of her hero Owens, but she finished just fifth in the high jump. Although she went on to win European titles and set multiple world records, the best years of her career were lost to World War Two.

'All I've done is run fast'
By 1948, Blankers-Koen was a housewife in Amsterdam and considered too old to be a real challenger in London. But in the space of seven days at Wembley Stadium, she blew the opposition away, with only British training partner Maureen Gardner running her close in the hurdles.


Blankers-Koen, far right, finishes first in the Women's 100m during the 1948 Olympics at Wembley Stadium.

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https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/26/sport/fanny-blankers-koen-google-doodle-spt/index.html