About Fanny Blankers-Koen
Known for: winning four gold medals in the 1948 London Olympics games, at age 30 and after having had two children. Her status as a wife and mother was used in the media to counter the myth that women athletes were not feminine.
Dates: April 26, 1918 - January 25, 2004
Sport: track and field
Also known as: Francina Elsje Koen, "first queen of women's Olympics," "the flying housewife"
Quote: "A newspaper wrote that I was too old. It made me so mad that I went out and won four golds."
Quote: "All I did was win some foot races."
Olympics: Four gold medals at the 1948 London Olympics
Honors
• 1948: Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year
• 1982: International Women's Sports Hall of Fame
• 1998: Jesse Owens Award
• 1999: Female Athlete of the Century, International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)
Country Represented: Netherlands
More About Fanny Blankers-Koen
Born Francina Koen, in Amsterdam, she played sports from an early age, joining a sports club when she was six. In her teen years she began to focus on track and field.
She entered a 200m race in 1935, and did not do well. Not a month later she beat the national champion in the 800m race. She also met her future coach and husband, Jan Blankers, there.
Berlin Olympics
She competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, placing fifth in the 100m relay and sixth in the high jump.
Nazi Occupation
She married Blankers in 1940, and their son was born in 1941. Because the Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis, she was unable to leave to compete in international competition. In competitions at home, she set world records for the long jump and high jump.
Her daughter was born in 1945, and less than a year later she was competing in European championships. She won the 80m hurdles, came in fourth in the high jump and was part of the team that won the 4x100m relay. Preparing for the 1948 Olympics, she set a new world record for the 100m. She then held the world records for four events: 100m, hurdles, long jump and high jump.
Thought by some too old to compete, and that having had two children put her out of contention, Fanny Blankers-Koen was determined to compete in another Olympics.
1948 London Olympics
And compete she did. She was in twelve competitions (heats and finals) in nine days, and won every time. She won the 100m race by almost three meters. She won the 80m hurdles despite hitting a hurdle and staggering; both the British competitor Maureen Gardner and Fanny Blankers-Koen were credited with a world record time of 11.2 seconds, and Blankers-Koen was awarded the gold and Gardner the silver. Gardner was also coached by Jan Blankers. Blankers-Koen briefly thought she had lost the gold to Gardner when she heard the British national anthem played; it turned out that was because the British monarch had entered the stadium.
Blankers-Koen won the final of the 200m race by almost 7 meters. And, as the anchor leg of the 4x100m relay, she won a fourth gold medal, bringing her team from third to first place just before the finish line. She did not compete in the long jump and high jump, though she held world records in those events; the winners did not come close to her records, so it is possible she would have won six gold medals if she had competed.
After the Olympics
She had to pull out of the 100m race in the 1952 Olympics because of serious illness, and then withdrew from the hurdles race after knocking over a hurdle. She retired as an athlete in 1955, after winning a national title in the shot put. She continued to coach. She managed the Dutch team in 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics. Jan Blankers died in 1977.
She also set the world record in the pentathlon. She wrote her autobiography in 1949, with her husband's participation.
Struck with Alzheimer's disease and deafness, Fanny Blankers-Koen died in 2004, at 85 years old.
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