Sporting highlights
In becoming the first woman to win four gold medals at the same Olympic Games, Dutch sprinter Fanny-Blankers Koen challenged perceptions about gender, age and motherhood, and increased the visibility of female athletes.
A gifted athlete who also excelled in field events, swimming and skating, and held world records in six different events, the 30-year-old Blankers-Koen won her London 1948 golds in the 100m, 80m hurdles, the 200m and the 4x100m relay. It is a haul that no other woman has matched or bettered in athletics events since.
What makes Blankers-Koen’s quadruple all the more remarkable is that she was criticised in some quarters merely for travelling to London to compete. One reporter even wrote that she was too old and should stay at home to take care of her two children. One of very few married female athletes at the time, the pioneering Blankers-Koen quickly silenced the doubters, and helped bring about genuine acceptance of female athletes at the highest level.
Nicknamed “the Flying Dutchmam”, she held the world records in the high and long jumps at the time but was denied the opportunity to win gold in these two events as well due to regulations preventing athletes from entering more than three individual events.
Blankers-Koen returned home a hero and was made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. She went on to compete in the 1952 Olympics at the age of 34, and became the Netherlands’ athletics team manager after retiring from competitive sport. Tributes to her have continued over the years. In 1981, the Fanny Blankers-Koen Games were founded. An annual track and field event, it is held at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadion in the Dutch town of Hengelo, and is an official World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting. In 1999, she was voted Female Athlete of the Century by the IAAF. In 2007, a two-metre bronze statue of her clearing a hurdle was unveiled by her son, Jan, and Lord Sebastian Coe outside the stadium that bears her name.
The women’s 200m final won by Blankers-Koen in London was the first in Olympic history. The event has stayed on the programme ever since. The Dutch sprinter won gold in a time of 24.4 seconds. The current world record is 21.34, set by the USA’s Florence Griffith Joyner at Seoul 1988.