Fanny Blankers-Koen | Sport | The Observer (original) (raw)

She matched Jesse Owens's medal haul - and was given a new bicycle to honour the achievement

In November 1999, at international athletics' gala night out in Monte Carlo, some of the greatest names in the sport formed an orderly line which stretched out of the opulent ballroom of the Grand Hotel. It included Maurice Greene, Cathy Freeman, Edwin Moses and Maria Mutola. The 81-year-old woman whom they were waiting to see turned to her companion and said: 'Maurice Greene asking for my autograph. Do you think he knows who I am?'

That he did was testimony to one of the greatest Olympians of them all: someone who dominated the 1948 Olympics in London in a way that no woman has before or since.

Fanny Blankers-Koen, a 30-year-old mother of two, had been dismissed by the British athletes' team manager, Jack Crump, as 'too old to make the grade', but over seven days at Wembley stadium she won the 100m, the 80m hurdles, the 200m and the 4x100m. Before the Games many in Holland had said she should not be running but looking after her children. When she returned to Amsterdam, thousands greeted her on the streets.

'I remember thinking how strange that I had made so many people happy,' she recalls. 'But times were harsh and people were glad of the opportunity to celebrate anything. It made me proud to know I had been able to bring joy into people's lives.'

The city of Amsterdam presented Blankers-Koen with a new bicycle. When Marion Jones won two gold medals and two bronze at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney Nike gave her a £10m sponsorship contract. Blankers-Koen refuses to be envious. 'Oh but she's very good isn't she? She is training, training twice a day. In the summer, we only trained twice a week. I couldn't have won four golds today. Maybe I could just make a final. Each heat now is like a final. Now it is a job. We were really amateurs. We had more fun than they have now.

'When I competed no one ever thought it would be possible to make money from doing something you enjoyed so much. I had to live through the war when the Nazis invaded my country. There were times when I thought I would never compete again, so afterwards I was just happy to have the opportunity to travel.'

Blankers-Koen turns 84 in April, and still lives in Amsterdam. She is a little deaf and has been ill recently, but her 5ft 6in figure isn't stooped. She tries to go for a walk to the nearby shops on most days. 'Have to keep fit,' she says.

Her most treasured Olympic memory is Jesse Owens's autograph. She asked for it at the 1936 Games in Berlin where she finished sixth in the high jump. Twelve years later, she emulated Owens's feat of winning four golds. 'When I met him again in Munich at the 1972 Olympics I said, "I still have your autograph, I'm Fanny Blankers-Koen." He said, 'You don't have to tell me who you are, I know everything about you."'

She shakes her head again. 'Isn't that incredible? Jesse Owens knew who I was.'