Liberal Arts Blog — Fanny Blankers-Koen — Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century?
Liberal Arts Blog — Saturday is the Joy of Sports, Dance, Fitness, and All Things Physical Day
Today’s Topic — Fanny Blankers-Koen (1918–2004) — Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century?
Honestly, I had never heard of her until this week. A Dutch track-and-field star who won four Olympic gold medals at the 1948 Olympics. She was known as “the flying housewife” as she had competed as the 30 year old mother of two. While the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) voted her the #1 female athlete of the century in 1999, Sports Illustrated ranked her only #26 on their list. Their first choice? Joyce Joyner-Kersee (1962 — ). Their second? Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911–1956). So whom would you choose? Why? Today, a few notes on Blankers-Koen, Joyner-Kersee, and Didrikson Zaharias. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
FANNY BLANKERS-KOEN: 4 Olympic Gold Medals at the 1948 Olympic Games (below is statue from Rotterdam)
1. She “could have won even more had she not been restricted to entering three individual races as well as the sprint relay. She arrived in London as the World record holder in no fewer than six different events.” (second link)
2. “The events she selected were among the most fiercely-contested. The 100m dash, the 80m hurdles, the 200m and the 4x100m relay.”
3. “She won the 100m with ease, and, with an Olympic gold medal to her name, nearly withdrew from her other events to return home. Her husband, Jan Blankers, who was also her coach, persuaded her otherwise. The hurdles gold came next, followed by victory in the 200m, which she won by 0.7secs — a huge margin that has not been matched since. Blankers-Koen celebrated those victories with a shopping spree, and only arrived back at Wembley Stadium ten minutes before the start of the 4x100m relay. Her team-mates were already warming up, but it did not put her off. She ran the anchor leg, took the baton in fourth place and produced an astonishing piece of sprinting to move up to third, then second before taking the lead. Four events, four gold medals.”
NB: “She retired from athletics in 1955, after which she became captain of the Dutch female track and field team.” (first link)
JACKIE JOYNER-KERSEE: 3 Olympic Gold Medals
1. Heptathlon: two gold medals (Seoul, 1988, Barcelona, 1992), one silver (1984, Los Angeles)
2. Long jump: one gold (Seoul, 1988), two bronze (Barcelona, 1992, Atlanta 1996).
3. “She was inspired to compete in multi-disciplinary track & field events after seeing a 1975 made-for-TV movie about Babe Didrikson Zaharias.” Parenthetically, her achievements are particularly impressive as she was diagnosed with severe asthma at age 18.
NB: The Seven Events of the Women’s Hepathlon: 100 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meter dash, long jump, javelin throw, 800 meter run.
BABE DIDRIKSON ZAHARIAS: 2 Olympic Gold Medals (1932), 10 LPGA (golf) championships, also excelled at baseball, basketball, driving, roller-staking, bowling, singing, harmonica, and sewing (she sewed her own golf outfits)
1. “She claimed to have acquired the nickname “Babe” (after Babe Ruth) upon hitting five home runs in a childhood baseball game, but her Norwegian mother had called her “Bebe” from the time she was a toddler.”
2. 1932 Olympics: Didrikson set four world records, winning two gold medals and one silver medal for track and field in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.In the 80-meter hurdles, she equaled the world record of 11.8 seconds in her opening heat. In the final, she broke her record with an 11.7 clocking, taking gold. In the javelin, she also won gold with an Olympic record throw of 43.69 meters. In the high jump, she took silver with a world record-tying leap of 1.657 metres (5.44 ft)… Didrikson is the only track and field athlete, male or female, to win individual Olympic medals in separate running, throwing and jumping events.” (fourth link below).
3. Golf — did not start playing until 1935 when she was 24 years old. “Didrikson became America’s first female golf celebrity and the leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s…She won 17 straight women’s amateur victories, a feat never equaled by anyone. By 1950, she had won every golf title available. Totaling both her amateur and professional victories, Zaharias won a total of 82 golf tournaments.”
NB: Charles McGrath of New York Times wrote of Zaharias, “Except perhaps for Arnold Palmer, no golfer has ever been more beloved by the gallery.” She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 2021.
FOOTNOTE — Serena Williams
Whoever you pick as the greatest female athlete of the 20th century, did Serena top them all in the 21st? My gut reaction is “yes.” The subject for another post.
The incredible dominance of Fanny Blankers-Koen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Didrikson_Zaharias#Baseball
https://www.topendsports.com/world/lists/greatest-all-time/women-si100.htm
For the last three years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to sports, dance, fitness. Or the coolest thing you learned about Sports, Dance, of Fitness in your life — whether on the field, on the dance floor or in the gym, whether from a coach, a parent, a friend, or just your own experimentation.
This is your chance to make some one else’s day. Or even change their life. It’s perhaps a chance to put into words something you have never articulated before. And to cement in your own memory something cool you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
