Gold Medal Girl: The Confessions of an Olympic Champion

x, 206 p., [8] leaves of plates : ports. ; 23 cm. #071221
Fraser, Dawn, 1937- | Swimmers — Australia — Biography.
Dawn Fraser AC MBE (born 4 September 1937) is an Australian freestyle champion swimmer and former politician. She is one of only four swimmers to have won the same Olympic individual event three times – in her case the women’s 100-metre freestyle.[1] During the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Fraser angered swimming team sponsors and the Australian Swimming Union (ASU) by marching in the opening ceremony against their wishes, and wearing an older swimming costume in competition, as she found it more comfortable than the one supplied by the sponsors. She was also accused of stealing an Olympic flag from a flagpole outside Emperor Hirohito’s palace, the Kōkyo. She was arrested but released without charge. In the end she was given the flag as a souvenir.[7] She later denied having swum the moat to steal the flag, telling The Times in 1991: “There’s no way I would have swum that moat. I was terrified of dirty water and that moat was filthy. There’s no way I’d have dipped my toe in it.”[8] The Australian Amateur Swimming Association banned Fraser from competitive swimming for 10 years.[9]