Betty Cuthbert

• Born: April 20, 1938
• Birthplace: Merrylands, near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
• Died: August 6, 2017
• Place of death: Mandurah, Australia

Sport: Track and field (sprints)

Early Life

Australian sport historians Reet Howell and Max Howell described the period from 1950 to 1970 as the “Golden Age of Australian Sport.” During that period, Australian runners, swimmers, and tennis players, both men and women, won several Olympic gold medals and Wimbledon tennis crowns. Elizabeth “Betty” Cuthbert, born on April 20, 1938, in Merrylands, near Sydney, Australia, was raised in a country where sporting activities, especially in the outdoors, were vigorously supported by home, community, and the nation. The climate of Sydney bears some resemblance to that of California. Cuthbert found, in her high school years, that she possessed genuine ability as a sprinter in the 100 and 200 meters. Cuthbert was influenced in her athletic goals by the performances of fellow Australian Marjorie Jackson, who, at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, won the 100/200 meter double.

The Road to Excellence

For eighteen-year-old Cuthbert, the excitement of running for Australia was equaled by the fact that the Olympics, for the first time, were to be hosted by her home country. The 1956 Games were held in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria. There were four thousand athletes from sixty-three countries, and the opening day attendance in the Melbourne Stadium was 103,000.

Cuthbert set an Olympic record in the first round of the 100 meters with a time of 11.4 seconds. In the semifinals, however, she was beaten by the powerful Christa Stubnick from the country then known as East Germany. The final was a different story. Cuthbert led from the start and won the gold medal in 11.5 seconds. Four days later, Cuthbert won the finals of the 200 meters in 23.4 seconds to equal the Olympic and world records.

On the final day of the Games, Cuthbert attempted to gain triple gold medals. She had won the 100 and 200 meters. The sternest challenge of all was the 4 100-meter relay. In the opening heat, the Australians set a world record of 44.9 seconds. In the final, Cuthbert, who by this time had been dubbed “The Golden Girl” by the international press corps, ran the anchor leg. Despite pressure from Heather Armitage of Great Britain, Cuthbert reached the finishing line in a world record of 44.5 seconds.

The Emerging Champion

Cuthbert was not Australia’s only gold medalist at the Melbourne Olympics. However, her youthful vivacity and her rare acceleration made her Australia’s darling. Overnight she became a celebrity and a folk heroine. Here was a winsome, talented athlete who had taken on the best and proved that she was the greatest female sprinter in the world.

The next eight years, however, were a period of frustration, injury, seeming recovery, and setback for Cuthbert. In 1960, at the Rome Olympics, she suffered a hamstring pull and had to withdraw from competition after completing only one race. Melvin Watman, in his Encyclopedia of Track and Field Athletics, commented on her post-1956 career: “She was overshadowed by teammate Marlene Willard at the 1958 Commonwealth Games, injured at the 1960 Olympics and showed indifferent form at the 1962 Commonwealth Games.”

Still, at the conclusion of the 1962 Commonwealth Games, Cuthbert seemed to be on the way back. She ran the last leg of the 4 110-yard relay for Australia and won a gold medal. The Commonwealth Games, originally called the British Empire Games, are to the remnants of the colonial British Empire—Canada, parts of South Africa, Australasia, and India—what the Pan-American Games are to North and South America. The event is a major athletic festival, but not on the same global scale as the Olympics. It seemed as if Cuthbert was firmly back as an Olympic contender for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. She still possessed great speed. Indeed, two years earlier, in 1960, she broke a world record that had stood for twenty-six years. She ran 7.2 seconds for the 60 meters. The record of 7.3 seconds had been set as far back as 1933.

Continuing the Story

Known to her teammates as “The Beaut” because of her film-star looks, Cuthbert, at the 1964 Olympics, followed a different path from the one she had followed at Melbourne. Still coached by Australian June Ferguson, who had won a silver medal at the 1948 Olympics, Cuthbert decided to attempt a new Olympic distance for women, the 400 meters. She had won an Australian national title in the 440 yards in 1963. The decision was unquestionably one of the wisest that she ever made in her career. It is unlikely that she would have been a medalist in either the 100 or 200 meters. In the 400 meters, however, she added strength, stamina, and staying power to her leg speed. In the 1964 400-meter final, although Cuthbert was highly regarded because of her Melbourne gold medals and her 1964 times in the 400 meters, Ann Packer of England was also seen as the possible champion. Cuthbert won the remarkably close one-lap race in a time of 52.0 seconds. David Wallechinsky, in his The Complete Book of the Olympics reported that, afterward, Cuthbert described it as “the only perfect race I have ever run.”

With this last gold medal, Cuthbert became only the second woman to win four Olympic gold track medals. The other was Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands at the 1948 London Olympics.

In such a career, the high point is difficult to assess. For Cuthbert, and indeed for Australia, it might have been her sensational gold medal victory in the 100 meters at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. As Allison Danzig reported in The New York Times of November 27, 1956, “the spectators hailed Cuthbert with an ovation surpassing any other at the Games.”

In 1964, Cuthbert retired at the age of twenty-seven. In 1981, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She remained an ardent advocate for continued research to find a cure for this debilitating muscular disorder. She died on August 6, 2017.

Summary

Betty Cuthbert continued to be actively involved in track and field in Australia despite severe illnesses. Named one of the Australian “Golden Girls” with teammates Shirley Strickland-de la Hunty, Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, and Marlene Matthews-Willard, Cuthbert’s performances have remained etched indelibly in the national consciousness of Australia. She was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1994 and named an Australian National Treasure in 1998. In 2000, Cuthbert was one of the final torchbearers at the Opening Ceremony for the Sydney Olympics. She was inducted into the International Association of Athletics Federations in 2012.

Bibliography

Clarke, Rohan. The Golden Girl. Milsons Point, N.S.W.: Random House, 2006.

Cuthbert, Betty. Golden Girl: An Autobiography. Sydney: Strand, 2000.

Goldstein, Richard. "Betty Cuthbert, Australia’s ‘Golden Girl’ of Track and Field, Dies at 79." The New York Times, 6 Aug. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/sports/olympics/betty-cuthbert-dead-australian-olympic-sprinter.html. Accessed 2 Apr. 2018.

Wallechinsky, David. The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics. Wilmington, Del.: Sport Media, 2005.