Dawn Fraser

Swimmer

• Born: September 4, 1937
• Place of Birth: Balmain, near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

SPORT: Swimming

Early Life

Dawn Lorraine Fraser, the youngest of eight children, was born in the living room of a little house on Birch Grove Road in Balmain—a suburb of Sydney, Australia—on September 4, 1937. In Balmain, a lower-middle-class community, the Frasers often struggled to make ends meet. Fraser was a tough little girl who thought nothing of hurling a stone at a streetlight or stealing fruit from a neighborhood street stall. Fraser idolized her older brother Don. Sadly, he died of leukemia when he was only twenty-one years old. He was seven years older than Fraser and had introduced her to swimming at the Balmain Baths. He did not live long enough to see her win in world competition. She dedicated her first Olympic medal to him and his memory.

The same year that Fraser’s brother died, her Scottish-born father became ill with bronchial asthma, and her mother became incapacitated with a heart condition. Suddenly, at thirteen, Fraser’s life changed from that of a happy-go-lucky street child to the family provider. All her older brothers and sisters had married and left home. She had to do all the housework—washing, sewing, and cooking for her parents—as well as make her own clothes. At night, she hung around the neighborhood gang at the local milk bar, smoking cigarettes and getting into trouble in small ways. She had no time for school.

Fraser finally left school to stay at home and take care of her mother. After two visits, the attendance officer gave her special permission to drop out of school before the legal age. When her mother was better, Fraser took a job in a dress factory. By then, she had met coach Harry Gallagher, who had convinced her that she had championship swimming potential. She raced from breakfast to training, to her job, and then back for more training. After that, she was on to her favorite milk bar, where she worked in the evening.

When Fraser was fourteen, she moved to Adelaide with Gallagher, who obtained a lease on a pool there and found Fraser a job as a floor walker in an Adelaide city store. She was working normal hours and eating regular meals at last. She was able to commit fully to swimming, with regular hours for practice. Her coach helped her find the self-discipline to achieve success in her sport. At seventeen, she won her first big race, the 220-yard freestyle championships of Australia, held at her new home pool in Adelaide. As if to show her coach that she had not completely given in to her training regimen, she warmed up for the race with three hours of jumping and diving into the pool from the 10-meter-high diving tower. Gallagher had made a rebellious girl see beyond the corner milk bar and the jukebox in Balmain. Fraser began to think about competing in the Olympics and Empire Games. Her dying brother’s last words, “Keep on with the swimming, kid. You’ll be a champ one of these days,” were about to come true.

Career

On February 25, 1956, in Sydney, Fraser set her first world record in the 200-yard freestyle. On October 25, 1962, she became the first woman to break one minute for the 100-meter freestyle; she remained the only woman to do so for two years until the American Sharon Stouder did it at Tokyo, finishing second to Fraser. Fraser won the 100-meter freestyle gold in three Olympics: Melbourne in 1956,Rome in 1960, and Tokyo in 1964. She was twenty-seven when she took the gold medal at Tokyo in 1964, and her world-record time of 58.9 seconds, set earlier that year, as well as her 1964 Olympic record time, remained unbroken until the 1972 Olympics.

Fraser’s good times were not all in the water. Her rule-breaking was almost as dramatic as her record-breaking. She was finally suspended by the Australian Amateur Swimming Union at the 1964 Games for climbing the wall of Emperor Hirohito’s palace to steal a souvenir flag from his garden. She watched from the grandstand at Mexico City because the suspension had not been lifted to let her swim.

Summary

Dawn Fraser was the first woman to swim under one minute for the 100-meter freestyle and the first person to win gold medals in three straight Olympics. She was banned from the 1968 Games, where she was favored to win a fourth gold medal. In 1965, Dawn was enshrined in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in the charter group of honorees. She later entered politics as a representative in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for her hometown of Balmain. In 2000, she was one of the torchbearers at the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. In 2011, Fraser published her memoir, Dawn: One Hell of a Life. Fraser remained involved in sports as a director of the Wests Tigers rugby league club of the National Rugby League. In 2018, Fraser received the Companion of the Order of Australia during the Queen’s Birthday Honours. 

Bibliography

Clark, Rachel, and Gareth Gardner. “Dawn Fraser: Inspiring Success Story and Secret to Success.” The Northern Daily Leader, 10 May 2024, www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/8624458/dawn-fraser-inspiring-success-story-and-secret-to-success. Accessed 10 June 2024.

Corderoy, Amy. “From Olympic bans to One Nation: Dawn Fraser No Stranger to Controversy.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July 2015, www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/from-olympic-bans-to-one-nation-dawn-fraser-no-stranger-to-controversy-20150707-gi6sgw.html. Accessed 10 June 2024.

Fraser, Dawn. Dawn: One Hell of a Life. Sydney: Hodder Headline Australia, 2002.

Greenberg, Stan. Whitaker’s Olympic Almanack: An Encyclopaedia of the Olympic Games. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000.

Moore, Tony. “Dawn Fraser Appointed to Highest Level of Order of Australia.” Brisbane Times, 10 June 2018, www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/dawn-fraser-appointed-to-highest-level-of-order-of-australia-20180610-p4zko2.html. Accessed 10 June 2024.

Wallechinsky, David, and Jaime Loucky. The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. London: Aurum Press, 2008.