Fanny Blankers-Koen

Francina Elsje "Fanny" Blankers-Koen (; née Koen, 26 April 191825 January 2004) was a Dutch track and field athlete, best known for winning four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She competed there as a 30-year-old mother of two, earning her the nickname "the Flying Housewife", and was the most successful athlete at the event. Her first competition was a disappointment, but in her third race, she set a national record in the 800 m. Fanny Koen soon made the Dutch team, although as a sprinter, not a middle-distance runner. At that time, 800 m was generally considered too physically demanding for female contestants and had been removed from the Olympic programme after 1928.

Slowly, Koen rose to the top. In 1938, she ran her first world record (11.0 seconds in the 100 yards), and she also won her first international medals. At the European Championships in Vienna, she won the bronze in both the 100 and 200 m,

When Blankers-Koen gave birth to her first child, Jan Junior, in 1942, Dutch media automatically assumed her career would be over.

During the war, domestic competition in sports continued in the German-occupied Netherlands, and Blankers-Koen set six new world records between 1942 and 1944. The first came in 1942, when she improved the world mark in the 80 m hurdles. The following year, she did even better. First, she improved the high jump record by an unequalled 5 cm from 1.66 m to 1.71 m in a specially arranged competition in Amsterdam on 30 May. Then, she tied the 100 m world record, but this was never recognised officially, as she competed against men when setting the record. She closed out the season with a new world record in the long jump, 6.25 m on 19 September 1943. The latter record would stand until 1954.

Circumstances were not easy, and it became harder to get enough food, especially for an athlete in training. Despite this, Blankers-Koen managed to break the world record in May 1944. At the same meet, she ran with the relay team that broke the 4 × world record. The German press was excited, as the previous record had been set by an English team. Months later, she helped break the 4 × 200 m record, which was held by Germany. In an act of defiance, the women wore outfits with national symbols while setting the record.

The winter of 1944–45, known as the Hongerwinter (hunger winter), was severe, and there was a serious lack of food, especially in the big cities. She gave birth to a daughter, Fanneke, in 1945 and in contrast to her previous post-birth activities, took seven months off from sport and only undertook limited training. ).

Although she displayed her form two months before the Games by beating her own 80 m hurdles world record – one of the six world records that she held at that time After a long talk with her husband, she decided to run anyway, and qualified for the final with great ease. The final, on 6 August, was again held in the pouring rain, but Blankers-Koen completed the inaugural Olympic 200 m for women in 24.4, seven-tenths of a second ahead of runner-up Audrey Williamson – still the largest margin of victory in an Olympic 200 m final. Audrey Patterson placed in third, thereby becoming the first African American woman to win an Olympic medal.

Blankers-Koen's arrival in Amsterdam after the 1948 London Olympics.

The 4 × 100 m final was held on the final day of the track and field competitions. The Dutch team, consisting of Xenia Stad-de Jong, Netti Witziers-Timmer, Gerda van der Kade-Koudijs and Blankers-Koen, qualified for the final, but just before the final, Blankers-Koen was missing. She had gone out to shop for a raincoat, and arrived just in time for the race. As the last runner, she took over the baton in third place, some five meters behind the Australian and Canadian runners. In spite of a careful and slow exchange, she caught up with the leaders, crossing the line a tenth of a second before the Australian woman. In hindsight, the Dutch team should have been disqualified because the third runner crossed the line on the inside.

Fanny Blankers-Koen won four of the nine women's events at the 1948 Olympics, Dubbed "the flying housewife",

Also, in 1949, she travelled abroad to promote women's athletics, flying to Australia and the United States.

Blankers-Koen had been chosen the 1948 Helms Athletic Foundation World Trophy Winner for Europe, and in 1949 she travelled to Los Angeles to compete in the Los Angeles Coliseum Relays.

In 1950, a controversial episode involving one of Blankers-Koen's competitors occurred. A year earlier, a new Dutch sprint talent, Foekje Dillema had made her breakthrough. In 1950, she broke the national record in the 200 m, and some journalists already dubbed her as the "new Fanny". That year, Dillema was the first subject of the International Association of Athletics Federations's mandatory sex verification policy and was subjected to a "sex test", the details of which were never revealed. As a result, she was expelled by the Royal Dutch Athletics Federation from athletics for the rest of her life and the 200 m record she took from Blankers-Koen was erased. Blankers-Koen's last moment of glory came in 1999. At a gala in Monaco, organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), she was declared the "Female Athlete of the Century".

In the years prior to her death, Blankers-Koen suffered from Alzheimer's disease and lived in a psychiatric nursing home. She was also deaf.

A year before her death, the first biography of Blankers-Koen was published, Een koningin met mannenbenen (A Queen with Men's Legs) by journalist Kees Kooman. Kooman's book portrays Blankers-Koen in a different light, as a woman who found it difficult to show affection and who was driven by a desire to win.

Her personal record on the 100 m of 11.5 remained the Amsterdam club record of Phanos for 62 years. It was finally broken in May 2010 by Jamile Samuel.

Awards and tributes

Blankers-Koen received the following recognition: Sauer Cup (Dutch Athlete of the Year): 1937, 1940, 1943 Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year: 1948 Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau: 1949 Medal of the NOC*NSP: 1949 Royal Dutch Athletics Federation honorary member: 1949 IAAF Female Athlete of the 20th Century: 1999 IAAF Hall of Fame: 2012

The Fanny Blankers-Koen Carrièreprijs was created by NOC*NSF to honour the achievements of Dutch sportspeople and was first given on 9 December 2005. For its inauguration, five people were awarded the prize. Since then, the award has been given to an individual annually.

She was among the women included in the 1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis, a dictionary of biography covering 1001 important Dutchwomen. In a 2004 national poll, Blankers-Koen ranked 29th for De Grootste Nederlander (The Greatest Netherlander); she was the third highest sportsperson (after footballers Johan Cruyff and Marco van Basten) and the seventh highest woman in the poll.

Two public statues of her have been erected in the Netherlands: the first was made by Han Rehm and placed in Rotterdam in 1954 and the second, made by Antoinette Ruiter, was placed on 9 May 2007 in Hengelo. Also in 2007, a text was installed on the fence of the sportspark at Olympiaplein in Amsterdam declaring "Hier trainde Fanny Blankers-Koen" ("Fanny Blankers-Koen trained here").

Several locations have been named in her honour, including Blankers-Koen Park in Newington, New South Wales, the location of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Village, a fire station in Amsterdam (Fanny Blankers-Koenkazerne), a multisport stadium in Hengelo (Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadium), a sports park in Almere (FBK-sportpark), and a sports hall in Hoofddorp where she lived (Fanny Blankers-Koen hal).

Blankers-Koen was honoured with a Google Doodle on 26 April 2018, on her 100th birthday.

Personal bests Individual events

National records † Blankers-Koen ran national record times of 11.4 and 23.7 seconds for the 100 m and 200 m, respectively, at the 1952 Dutch Athletics Championships. However, these records were later rescinded after it was shown that the collapse of a nearby railway track had caused the running track to be excessively downhill.

Competition results International competitions Information from her World Athletics profile unless noted otherwise.

National titles