Fanny Durack

Fanny Durack

Fanny Durack (left) and Mina Wylie Australian swimmers at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics
Personal information
Full name	Sarah Frances Durack
Nickname(s)	"Fanny"
Nationality	Australia
Born	27 October 1889(1889-10-27) Sydney, Australia
Died	20 March 1956(1956-03-20) Sydney, Australia
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Stroke(s)	breaststroke, freestyle
Medal record Women’s Swimming Competitor for Australasia Olympic Games Gold 1912 Stockholm 100 m freestyle

Sarah Frances "Fanny" Durack (27 October 1889 – 20 March 1956) was an Australian swimmer. From 1910 until 1918 she was the world's greatest female swimmer of all distances from freestyle sprints to the mile marathon.

Life and career

Durack was born in Sydney, Australia in 1889.

Durack learned to swim in Sydney's Coogee Baths using breaststroke, the only style for which there was a championship for women at that time. In 1906 she won her first title, and over the next few years, dominated the Australian swimming scene. In the 1910-11 swimming season, Mina Wylie beat Durack in the 100 yards breaststroke and the 100 and 220 yards freestyle at the Australian Swimming Championships at Rose Bay. The two went on to become close friends.

In the late 1910s, she held every women's swimming world record from 100 m to a mile.

Durack and Wylie were initially refused permission to compete in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. The New South Wales Ladies Swimming Association later allowed them to go provided they bore their own expenses. Durack set a new world record in the heats of the 100 m freestyle. She won the final, becoming the first Australian woman to win an Olympic gold medal in a swimming event. Until 1932 (when Claire Dennis won the 200 m backstroke in Los Angeles) she was the only such woman; and until 1956 she and Dennis were the only two such women.

Death and legacy

Durack died in Sydney in 1956. She was interred with her late husband in Waverley Cemetery. Fanny Durack Aquatic Centre in Petersham, Sydney is named in her honour.

Records

Olympic Records

• 1912 gold (100m freestyle)

World records

• 100 yard freestyle (1912 to 1921)
• 100m freestyle (1912 to 1920)
• 220 yard freestyle (1915 to 1921)
• 500m freestyle (1916 to 1917)
• 1 mile (1914 to 1926)

Fanny Durack was posthumously inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1967.

Notes and references

References

• FitzSimons, Peter (2006). Great Australian Sports Champions. Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 0-7322-8517-8. 
• David Wallechinsky, The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Little, Brown and Company (1996)