The 20th May 2000 marks the 100th anniversary of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games. It also marks the centenary of women’s participation in the modern Olympics. Three events were available for women at the 1900 Olympic Games: golf, tennis and yachting.
When the modern Olympic Games began in 1896 women had no part in the competition. In fact, the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin had said on several occasions that the Olympics were no place for women. He felt that rather than seek records for herself, a woman’s greatest achievement was to encourage her sons to excel.
Women had to work to gain a presence in the Olympic arena and force open the door to one sport after another. Swimming for women was included in the Games in 1912 and a limited program of track and field was added in 1928. Women’s races longer than 200m were banned until 1960 when the 800m was reintroduced. The women’s marathon was not added until 1984. In 1992 the 10,000m walk was introduced and recently, waterpolo — which had been the domain of men since the Olympics first began — was added to the 2000 Olympic Games program for women.
Women have played an enormous role in painting the Olympic picture. Since Charlotte Cooper of Great Britain won gold in singles tennis at the 1900 Paris Olympics, many women have put their stamp on Olympic history.
There are those who have dominated, like the great Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen who became the first woman to win four gold medals in a single Games, and Larissa Latynina of the Soviet Union, whose nine gold, five silver and four bronze over the course of three Olympiads remains a record for men and women.
There are those who are renown for their "firsts" like Nadia Comanici who became the first Olympic gymnast male or female to score a perfect 10 in competition and American Joan Benoit who won the first women’s Olympic marathon in 1984.
Moroccan 400m hurdler Nawal El Moutawekel won her nation’s first gold medal and became the first woman from an Islamic nation to win a medal. And there are some for whom age meant nothing like gymnast Luigina Giavotti who, at 11 years 302 days is both youngest female competitor and medallist, and Lorna Johnstone who competed in her second Olympics in 1972 at the age of 70 years, 5 days, representing Great Britain in equestrian.
Women athletes in many countries have historically made a disproportionately high contribution to the medals count at the Games. This has certainly been true for Australia.
In certain Olympic sports, particularly swimming and track and field, Australian women have been outstanding. For example in track and field up to and including Atlanta, since 1948 women have constituted just over 30% of the track and field team but have won 75% of all medals and 11 out of 14 gold medals.
In swimming women have won 15 out of the 25 gold medals won by Australians since 1912.
In total, women have comprised 23 per cent of Australian Olympic teams from 1948 to 1996 and have won 38 per cent of medals.
In so far as Australia has a reputation for excellence as an Olympic nation, that reputation has been built largely on achievements of women like swimmers Sarah (Fanny) Durack, Dawn Fraser, Lorraine Crapp, Shane (Gould) Innes, Beverley Whitfield; track and field competitors Marjorie Jackson, Betty Cuthbert, Shirley Strickland, Glynis Nunn, Debbie Flintoff-King and Louise Sauvage; our women’s hockey team and many others.
Many of those women’s personal stories have contributed to the Olympic picture. Marjorie Jackson came from a small country town whose members banded together to create a cinders track on which she could train for the Olympics. Shirley Strickland was criticised during the 1948 Olympics for not remaining at home with her children. Headlines described her as a "mother and runner" but few made mention of the fact that she also held a PhD in nuclear physics. Nova Peris-Kneebone became the first Indigenous Australian to win a gold medal as a member of the victorious Australian women’s hockey team at Atlanta. Louise Sauvage could walk as a child but found she got around more quickly in her wheelchair. That has certainly proved to be true. Louise is a Paralympic champion many times over, and a gold medallist from the 800m wheelchair demonstration event at the Atlanta Olympics.
The achievements of women athletes have encouraged participation in sport generally and continue to inspire all Australians.
The fact that the entire first print run of Dennis H. Phillips' book Australian Women at the Olympic Games, published on the eve of the Barcelona Olympics, sold out in three months, serves to illustrate the impact on society of our women Olympians.
Role models inspire children and adults alike. Young girls need to see women can do and have done, well in sport. Women’s participation in the Olympics is a story of hard work and persistence, and also one of achievement and success. It is the epitome of the Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin’s Olympic creed: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle".
Facts ‘n’ Stats
- Australian women first competed in the Olympic Games in 1912, when
Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie competed in the swimming events, winning a gold and
silver medal respectively.
- Women have won 15 out of the 40 Olympic gold medals won by Australians
in swimming events since 1912.
- In 1948 Australian women participated in a team event in the Olympic
Games for the first time. The event was the 4 x 100m relay in track and field
and team members were Betty McKinnon, Shirley Strickland, Joyce King and June
Maston. The team won a silver medal.
- Since 1948 women have made up 19% of the Australian athletics teams,
but have won more than 75% of the athletics medals.
- Australian women have won 11 out of the 18 athletics gold medals won by
Australians.
- Women have won 30 of the 89 gold medals (ie 34%) won by Australians at
Olympic Games from 1948 to 1996. This is a remarkable achievement since only 24%
of the total number of events between 1948 and 1996 were available to women, and
women comprised only 21% of the total participants in Australian teams.
- Australian women have won 32 gold medals, 28 silver medals, 37 bronze
medals in the Olympic Games since 1912.
- No women were named in the Australian team for the Olympic Games in
1924.
- Since 1912, Australian teams at the Olympic Games have included 669
women, of which 149 have won at least one medal.
- Australian women have won medals in the following sports at the Summer
Olympic Games: athletics/track and field, basketball, beach volleyball,
canoeing, cycling, diving, equestrian, hockey, rowing, shooting, softball,
swimming and tennis.
Australian women flag bearers
1976 Montreal Raelene Boyle (athletics)
1980 Moscow Denise Boyd (athletics)
1992 Barcelona Jenny Donnet (diving)
Youngest women to represent Australia at the Olympic Games
Sandra Morgan was aged 14 years, 6 months when she was par of the
winning 1956 4 x 100m freestyle relay (with Dawn Fraser, Lorraine Crapp and
Faith Leech) in Melbourne.
In 1972 at Munich, Shane Gould was the youngest woman to win an individual gold medal – aged 15 years, 9 months she won three gold medals.
Maureen Caird, at 17 years, 19 days became the youngest track and field gold medallist from any country in the history of the Olympic Games. She won the gold medal in 80m hurdles at the 1968 Mexico City Games.
Most medals
In addition to her four gold medals, Dawn Fraser won four silver
medals in the 1956—64 period.
Most gold medals
Dawn Fraser won four gold medals in swimming (1956 — 2; 1960 — 1; 1964 —
1).
Betty Cuthbert won four gold medals in athletics (1956 — 3; 1960 — 1).
Most gold medals at a single Olympics
>Betty Cuthbert won three gold medals in athletics at the 1956
Melbourne Olympic Games.
Shane Gould won three gold medals in swimming at the 1972 Munich Olympic
Games.
A Chronology of Women at the Olympic Games
1000BC Women-only Herean Games take place in Greece
776 BC Olympic rules forbid the men-only Games from taking place unless a priestess of Demeter is present
Australian Women at the Paralympic Games
The Paralympics, or ‘Parallel’ Olympics, are held every four years, usually in
the same country that hosts the Olympic Games. A diverse range of people compete
in the Paralympic Games including athletes with intellectual and sensory
disabilities. Athletes are generally classified according to their ability and
not their disability. So, for example, there are events where athletes with
cerebral palsy compete against amputee athletes or athletes with a vision
impairment. There are some sports that are only for people with specific
disabilities such as goalball for vision impaired and boccia for athletes with
cerebral palsy.
The first Paralympics were held in 1960 in Rome. Unfortunately there is no comprehensive record of Australia’s participation in the Paralympics before 1990, however we do know that our first woman representative was Daphne Hilton (nee Ceeley) who was the only Australian woman in the 1960 team.
In 1992, Australian women won 20 of our 37 gold medals at the Barcelona Paralympics. Australia’s greatest success though, was in 1996 when our athletes finished in second place to the USA on the medal tally with 106 medals, including 42 gold. Women made up less than 40% of the team yet won more than 50% of these gold medals (22 gold).
Indigenous Australian Women at the Olympic Games
While Australian women have faced many hurdles in their quest for Olympic
equality, these hurdles have been higher and more numerous for Australia’s
Indigenous women.
Australia has had only two Indigenous women representatives at the Olympic Games. Cathy Freeman and Nova Peris-Kneebone both represented Australia at Atlanta in 1996. These two women have a 100% record, both having won a medal at the Games. This is all the more impressive when considered with the fact that Indigenous women constitute less than 1% of the Australian population.
Australian Women at the Winter Olympic Games
Although the Winter Olympic Games have been held since 1924, and Australia did
have one representative at the Garmisch (Germany) Games in 1936, Australia did
not start competing regularly in Winter Olympic Games until Oslo (Norway) in
1952.
The earliest notable result for an Australian woman at the Winter Games was a 12th placing for Jacqueline Mason, who participated in the figure skating pairs competition with Mervyn Bower in 1960 at Squaw Valley in the USA.
Australia’s only medal in the Winter Olympic Games came in 1998 when Zali Steggall finished 3rd in the slalom event in the Alpine skiing.
Ranked 12th in the World Cup standings, Zali went on to confirm that the Olympic result was no fluke with a win in the women’s slalom world championship early in 1999.
The other most successful Australian woman competitor in the Winter Games has been Kirsty Marshall, who finished 6th in the freestyle aerial competition at Lillehammer in 1994. Expected to win a medal, Kirsty was leading after the semi-finals and was third after the first of two jumps in the final. In true competitive spirit, rather than settle for bronze, Kirsty attempted a difficult jump she hadn’t executed in two years since injuring her knee. In an all or nothing attempt, Kirsty missed out on the bronze and finished in 6th place, but had given her all to the competition.
In 1998 at Nagano, Kirsty was favoured to win a medal after finishing first in the world championships earlier in the year on the same course. Unfortunately a couple of bad landings in the preliminary rounds saw her miss the finals.
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