PE & SPORT YESTERDAY– Fanny Blankers-Koen

Pe & SportFea yesterdaytures hus far, ‘PE & Sport Yesterday’ has Thighlighted the exploits of the great sporting all-rounder C.B. Fry and the amazing events surrounding the very first FA Cup Final. The next contribution in this series focuses upon Fanny Blankers-Koen, an incredible sports woman who in 1999 was celebrated as the greatest female athlete of the 20th Century by the IAAF (Carl Lewis received the greatest male athlete award). Yet to many she remains relatively PE&SPORT unknown. YESTERDAY – Fanny Blankers-Koen aka ‘The Flying Housewife’ 50 PE & Sport Today • Summer 2006 Fanny (Francisca) was far from finished and, in Blankers-Koen was born in It was simply inconceivable that a 1950, Fanny almost repeated the small Dutch town of her Olympic performance at Lage Vuursche in 1918. mother could also be an athlete the European Throughout her youth she Championships in Brussels, was a keen participant in where she won gold in the many sports such as tennis, 80 metres hurdles, the 100 gymnastics, ice skating and metres and the 200 metres, showed particular talent for though this time narrowly both swimming and running. missing out in the relay. Due to the number of elite In 1952, Fanny took part in swimmers in the her third Olympics and her Netherlands at that time, last major competition, held in Fanny was advised to pursue Helsinki. Though severely athletics and competed in hampered by injury she her first event in 1935. reached the final of the 80 Though her first competition metres hurdles but after was a disappointment, Fanny knocking over the second soon made progress, setting hurdle, she abandoned the a national record in the 800 race. Aged 37, Fanny recorded metres and gaining selection her final vicory in track and for the Dutch team, although field winning the national title interestingly as a sprinter, in the shot putt. not a middle distance runner. Following active The following year aged only for many it was assumed questioning her abilites, competition, Fanny 18 she represented her that this would bring to an suggesting that 30 years old continued to be invloved in country at the 1936 end her short sporting was too old for a woman to athletics and served as the Olympics in Berlin, where career. Top female athletes be an athlete and so it was team leader of the Dutch she participated in the high who were married were uncertain as to how Fanny athletics team from the jump (taking 6th place) and rare at the time and it was would perform at the 1958 European the 4x100m relay, where the simply inconceivable that a London Olympics two years Championships to the 1968 Dutch team came in fifth. mother could also be an later. What happened next Olympics and, for her Heartened by her athlete. was to change history. sporting feats, a statue was Olympic performances, Fanny and her husband, At the London Olympics erected in her honour in Fanny continued to make however, had other plans of 1948 Fanny Blankers- her native Amsterdam. steady progress to the top and training was resumed in Koen became the first When commended by the and in 1938 she recorded earnest only weeks after woman to win four Olympic IAAF in 1999 as the greatest her first world record of her son’s birth. In all, during gold medals (including the female athlete of the 20th 11.0 seconds in the 100 wartime, Fanny would set 80 metres hurdles, the 100 Century, her achievements yards. In the same year at six new world records metres, the 200 metres and totalled four Olympics golds, the European including new standards for anchoring the 4x100 relay) five European golds, the setting Championships in Vienna, the 80 metres hurdles, the and the first one to do so in of 16 world records at eight she won her first medals 100 yards, the 100 metres, a single Olympics. To date, different events and 58 national securing the bronze in both the high jump, the long jump no other track and field championships titles. the 100 and 200 metres. and the 4x200 relay on athlete has won more Fanny Blankers-Koen Not surprisingly a successful anchor leg. medals in a single Olympics died at the age of 85 in Olympic career was forecast Lack of food towards the with only three other Hoofddorp on 25 January but the outbreak of World end of the wartime athletes – Alvin Kraenzlein 2004. Always modest and War II appeared to deprive occupation and the birth of (1900), Jesse Owens (1936) unassuming, she claimed Fanny of her chance, as both Fanny Junior in 1946 did and Carl Lewis (1984) – that: “All I did was win some the 1940 and 1944 Games limit her successes in the equalling her acheivement. foot races”, yet the fact that were cancelled. European Chamiionships in Dubbed the “Flying she accomplished all that In addition, following her Oslo later that year, though Housewife” by the she did as a mother of two, marriage to Jan Blankers, the golds were still won in the international press, Fanny during a time when many coach of the Dutch women’s 80 metres hurdles and the was welcomed back home in disregarded women’s athletics team in 1940, 4x100 relay. However, being Amsterdam by an immense athletics, only serves to Fanny gave birth to her first less prolific than expected crowd. Though many make her acheievements all child, Jan Junior, in 1941 and led to journalists expected her to retire, she the greater. PE & Sport Today • Summer 2006 51.

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