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Fanny Blankers-Koen

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Sports and games people

       Olympic medal record
         Women's athletics
   Gold 1948 London     200 m
   Gold 1948 London     100 m
   Gold 1948 London 80 m hurdles
   Gold 1948 London 4x100 m relay

   Fanny Blankers-Koen ( 26 April 1918– 25 January 2004) was a Dutch
   athlete, best known for winning four gold medals at the 1948 Summer
   Olympics in London. She accomplished this as a mother of two, during a
   time when many disregarded women's athletics. Her background and
   performances earned her the nickname "the Flying Housewife."

   Having started competing in athletics in 1935, she took part in the
   1936 Summer Olympics a year later. Although international competition
   was hampered 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. She retired from
   athletics in 1955, after which she became leader 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).

Early life

   Blankers-Koen was born Francina Elsje Koen in Lage Vuursche (near
   Baarn) to Arnoldus and Helena Koen. As a teenager, she enjoyed tennis,
   swimming, gymnastics, ice skating, and running. It soon became clear
   she was a sports talent, but she could not decide which sport to pick.
   A swimming coach advised her to do track because there were already
   several top swimmers in the Netherlands at that time (such as Rie
   Mastenbroek), and she would have a better chance to qualify for the
   Olympics in a track event.

   Her first appearance in the sport was in 1935. Her first competition
   was a disappointment, but in her third race, she set a national record
   in the 800 m. Fanny Koen soon made the Dutch team, although as a
   sprinter, not a middle distance runner. The following year, only
   eighteen years old, she was nominated for the 1936 Olympic team.

   In Berlin she participated in the high jump and the 4 × 100 m relay,
   both held on the same day. In the high jump, she took sixth place
   (shared with two other jumpers) while the Dutch relay team came in
   fifth in the final (the sixth team in the final, Germany, was
   disqualified).

   Slowly, Koen rose to the top. In 1938, she ran her first world record
   (11.0 seconds in the 100 yards), and she also won her first
   international medals. At the European Championships in Vienna, she won
   the bronze in both the 100 and 200 m, which were both won by Stanisława
   Walasiewicz. Many observers, and Koen herself, expected her to do well
   at the upcoming Olympics, which were to be held in Helsinki in July
   1940.

   However, the outbreak of World War II put a stop to the preparations.
   The Olympics were formally cancelled on 2 May 1940, a week before the
   Netherlands was invaded by German troops.

World War II

   Just prior to the invasion, Koen had become engaged, and on 29 August
   1940, she married Jan Blankers, thereby changing her name to
   Blankers-Koen. Blankers, a former triple jumper (participant in the
   1928 Olympics) was a sports journalist and the coach of the Dutch
   women's athletics team, even though he originally thought women should
   not compete in sports – not an unusual opinion at the time. However,
   his attitude towards female athletes changed after he fell in love with
   Koen, who was fifteen years younger than he was.

   When Blankers-Koen gave birth to her first child Jan Junior in 1941,
   Dutch media automatically assumed her career would be over. Top female
   athletes who were married were rare at the time, and it was simply
   inconceivable to most that a mother would be an athlete. Blankers-Koen
   and her husband had other plans, and she resumed training only weeks
   after her son's birth.

   During war time, Blankers-Koen would set six new world records. The
   first came in 1942, when she improved the world mark in the 80 m
   hurdles. The following year, she did even better. First, she improved
   the high jump record by an unequalled 5 cm from 1.66 m to 1.71 m in a
   specially arranged competition in Amsterdam on May 30. Then, she tied
   the 100 m world record, but this was never recognised officially, as
   she competed against men when setting the record. She closed out the
   season with a new world record in the long jump, 6.25 m on September
   19, 1943. The latter record would last until 1954.

   Circumstances were not easy, and it got more difficult to get enough
   food, especially for an athlete in training. Despite this,
   Blankers-Koen managed to break the 100 yd world record in May 1944. At
   the same meet, she ran with the relay team that broke the 4 × 110 yd
   world record. The German press was excited, as the record had
   previously been owned by an English team. Months later, she helped
   break the 4 × 200 m record, which was held by Germany. In an act of
   defiance, the women wore outfits with national symbols while setting
   the record.

   The winter of 1944 – 1945, known as the Hongerwinter (hunger winter),
   was severe, and there was a great lack of food, especially in the big
   cities. Naturally, sport was the last thing on people's minds, and the
   Blankers family, living in Amsterdam, was happy to make it through the
   war in good health.

"The Flying Housewife"

   Statue of Fanny Blankers-Koen in Rotterdam
   Enlarge
   Statue of Fanny Blankers-Koen in Rotterdam

   The first major international event after the war were the 1946
   European Championships, held in Oslo, Norway. Earlier in 1946,
   Blankers-Koen had given birth to Fanny Junior, but this had not stopped
   her from resuming training shortly afterwards. The Championships were a
   slight disappointment. In the 100 m semi-finals, held during the high
   jump final, she fell and failed to qualify for the final. She ended the
   high jump competition in fourth, with bruises from the fall. The second
   day was more successful, as she won the 80 m hurdles event, and led the
   Dutch relay team to victory in the 4 × 100 m.

   As the leading athlete in the Netherlands – in 1947 she won national
   titles in 6 events – Blankers-Koen was assured of a place on the Dutch
   team for the first post-war Olympics in London. After her experience in
   Oslo, she decided not to take part in all events, but limit herself to
   four: the 100 m, the 200 m, the 80 m hurdles, and the 4 × 100 m relay.
   Although she displayed her form two months before the Games by beating
   her own 80 m hurdles world record, some journalists questioned her,
   suggesting 30 years was too old for a woman to be an athlete.

   Her first competition was the 100 m, and she qualified easily for the
   semi-finals, in which she set the fastest time. The final ( 2 August)
   was held on a muddy track and in rainy conditions. Blankers-Koen sped
   to the finish line in 11.9, easily beating her opponents Dorothy Manley
   and Shirley Strickland, who took second and third.

   Fanny Blankers-Koen thereby became the first Dutch athlete to win an
   Olympic title in athletics, but she was more concerned with her next
   event, the 80 m hurdles. Her chief opponent was Maureen Gardner, who
   equaled Blankers's world record prior to the Games, and would be
   running for her home crowd. Both athletes made the final, in which
   Blankers-Koen got off to a bad start (she would later claim she thought
   there had been a false start). She picked up the pace quickly, but was
   unable to shake off Gardner, who kept close until the finish line, and
   the two finished almost simultaneously. When the British national
   anthem was played, the crowd in Wembley Stadium cheered, and
   Blankers-Koen briefly thought she had been beaten. However, the anthem
   was played in honour of the British royal family, which entered the
   stadium at that time. Examination of the finish photo clearly showed
   that not Gardner, but Blankers-Koen had won, although both received the
   same time (11.2).

   In spite of her successes, Blankers-Koen nearly failed to start in the
   semi-finals of the 200 m, held the day after hurdles final. Shortly
   before the semi-final, she broke down because of home-sickness. After a
   long talk by her husband, she decided to run anyway, and qualified for
   the final with great ease. The final, on 6 August, was again held in
   the pouring rain, but Blankers-Koen completed the inaugural Olympic
   200 m for women in 24.4, seven tenths of a second ahead of runner-up
   Audrey Williamson — still the largest margin of victory in an Olympic
   200 m final. Audrey Patterson, the first African American woman to win
   an Olympic medal placed in third, although a finish photo discovered
   decades later indicates Shirley Strickland should have won the bronze.

   The 4 × 100 m final was held on the final day of the track and field
   competitions. The Dutch team, consisting of Xenia Stad-de Jong, Netty
   Witziers-Timmer, Gerda van der Kade-Koudijs and Blankers-Koen qualified
   for the final, but just before the final, Blankers-Koen was missing.
   She had gone out to shop for a rain coat, and arrived just in time for
   the race. As the last runner, she took over the baton in third place,
   some five meters behind Australia and Canada. In spite of a careful and
   slow exchange, she caught up with the leaders, crossing the line a
   tenth before the Australian women.

   Fanny Blankers-Koen was the first woman to win four Olympic gold
   medals, and the first one to do so in a single Olympics. As of 2004, no
   other track and field athlete has won more medals in a single Olympics,
   although Alvin Kraenzlein (1900), Jesse Owens (1936) and Carl Lewis
   (1984) have also won four golds in one Olympics. Dubbed the "Flying
   Housewife", and "Amazing Fanny" by the international press, she was
   welcomed back home in Amsterdam by an immense crowd. After a carriage
   ride through the city, she received a lot of praise and gifts. From her
   neighbours, she received a new bicycle: "to go through life at a slower
   pace".

After London

   Now known all over the world, Blankers-Koen received many offers for
   endorsements, advertisements, publicity stunts and the like. Because of
   the strict amateurism rules in force at the time, she had to turn most
   offers down. However, in 1949, she travelled abroad to promote women's
   athletics, flying to Australia and the United States.

   A darker episode in Blankers-Koen's life occurred in 1950. A year
   earlier, a new Dutch sprint talent, Foekje Dillema had made her
   breakthrough. In 1950, she broke the national record in the 200 m, and
   some journalists already dubbed her as the "new Fanny". After a highly
   dubious sex test, probably on the request of Jan Blankers, Dillema was
   expelled from the Dutch team. The exact results of the test remain
   unclear, and although Dillema looked a bit like a man, most do not
   doubt she is a woman. Most of the other women on the team at the time
   suspect it was an attempt by Jan and Fanny Blankers to eliminate a
   possible opponent, although this has never been confirmed.

   The same year, she almost repeated her Olympic performance at the
   European Championships in Brussels. She won the titles in the 100 m,
   200 m and 80 m hurdles all with large margins of victory (four tenths
   or more), but narrowly missed out on a fourth win in the relay, which
   was won by the British team.

   At age 34, she took part in her third Olympics, which were held in
   Helsinki. Although she was in good shape, she was severely hampered by
   a boil on her buttocks. She qualified for the 100 m semi-finals, but
   forfeited a start to save herself for the hurdles event. She reached
   the final in that event, but after knocking over the second hurdle, she
   abandoned the race. It was her last major competition. On 7 August
   1955, Fanny Blankers-Koen was victorious for the last time, winning the
   national title in the shot put, her 58th Dutch title.

Later life

   After her athletic career, Blankers-Koen served as the team leader of
   the Dutch athletics team, from the 1958 European Championships to the
   1968 Summer Olympics.

   In 1977, her husband Jan died. It forced her, often dependent on Jan
   Blankers, to become more independent. Some years after his death, she
   moved back to her old hometown Hoofddorp. In 1981, the Fanny
   Blankers-Koen Games an international athletics event, were established.
   They are still held annually in Hengelo.

   Fanny Blankers-Koen's last moment of glory came in 1999. At a gala in
   Monaco, organized by the International Association of Athletics
   Federations (IAAF), she was declared the "Female Athlete of the
   Century", very much to her own surprise.

   In the years prior to her death, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease
   and lived in a psychiatric nursing home. She died at age 85 in
   Hoofddorp on 25 January 2004.

   A year before her death, the first relatively objective biography of
   Blankers-Koen was published, after a 1949 work co-authored by her
   husband. Through many interviews with relatives, friends and
   contemporary athletes, it paints a previously unknown picture of her.
   During her successful years, Dutch and international media always
   portrayed her as the perfect mother, who was very modest about her own
   achievements. Kees Kooman's book portrays Fanny Blankers-Koen in a more
   self-centered light, a woman who found it difficult to give love and
   most of all always wanted to win.

   == References ==
     * Bijkerk, Ton (May 2004). "Fanny Blankers-Koen: A Biography".
       Journal of Olympic History 12-2: 56–60.
     * Blankers, Jan & Van Leeuwen, Aad (1949). Fanny : de geschiedenis
       van 4 gouden medailles. 's-Graveland : Konings Pyramide.
     * Kooman, Kees (2003). Een koningin met mannenbenen. Amsterdam: L.J.
       Veen. ISBN 90-204-0820-8.

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