Described as "the flying Housewife" and hailed as one of the most successful athletes of her time, Fanny Blankers-Koen would have been 100 years on April 26.
In the Dutch track-and-field athlete's honour, Google is changing its doodle in nine countries.
This is her story:
National record
Francina Elsje Koen was born in Baarn, a small town in the Dutch province of Utrecht in 1918.
She had four brothers and was the only daughter of a wealthy father who became government inspector.
She showed an early inclination for sports such as tennis, swimming, fencing and running.
Aged 15, she was asked by her trainer to choose a sport. She selected track-and-field, and by the age of 17, she had broken her first national record for the women's 800 metres.
World War II
In 1936, at the age of 18, she competed in the Berlin Olympics.
Despite her young age, she won the sixth place in high jump and was a member of the 4x100-metres team that came fifth.
During World War II, the Netherlands was under Nazi occupation and there was a six-year cessation of international competition.
The young athlete married her coach Jan Blankers.
The couple had a son, Jantje, and a daughter, Fanneke.
Blankers-Koen continued to build up her speed and by the end of 1943, she was a world-record holder at 80 metres hurdles.
August 6, 1948: Fanny Blankers-Koen "The Flying Housewife" from the Netherlands is first women to win 4 golds at the Olympics. pic.twitter.com/fWohrSc1k6 — Ｈｉｓｔｏｒｙ (@HistoryTime_) August 6, 2017
Flying housewife
The first major international event for her after the war was the 1946 European Championships held in Oslo, Norway.
As the leading athlete in the Netherlands, she held six world records: in the 100-meter dash, 80-meter hurdles, high jump, long jump, 4x100 relay and 4x400 relay.
When she declared her intentions to compete in the 1948 London Games, she received letters from many criticising her for continuing to race despite being a mother and insisting she stay home. She was 30.
"I got very many bad letters, people writing that I must stay home with my children and that I should not be allowed to run on a track with - how do you say it? - short trousers,'' she told The New York Times in 1982.
People wrote that I must stay home with my children Fanny Blankers-Koen
Gold opportunity
Despite the constant criticism, she still participated in the London Games, where she won four golds: 100 metres, 80 metres hurdles, 200 metres, and 4x100 metres,
The feat made her the first woman to win four medals in a single Olympics.
"One newspaperman wrote that I was too old to run, that I should stay at home and take care of my children. When I got to London, I pointed my finger at him and I said: 'I show you,'" she said.
But during the competition she was under extreme pressure, and before the semifinals she told her husband she wanted to quit: "Two Olympics medals is enough", she was quoted as saying.
Years later, her husband told in an interview to The Times: "I had to talk too much. There is only one chance in your life that you can perhaps win three gold medals, and that is the chance that you will take."
In 1955, she retired from the track but kept in shape with running, swimming and tennis, and she continued serving the sport by managing the Netherlands athletics team at the Rome, Tokyo and Mexico City Olympics.
She died in Amsterdam at the age of 85, in January 25, 2004.
Two Olympics medals is enough Fanny Blankers-Koen
SHE was the trailblazing Dutch track star whose achievements at the 1948 London Olympics made a mockery of stereotypes about female athletes.
Now Fanny Blankers-Koen is being commemorated with a Google Doodle on what would have been her 100th birthday – here is what you need to know about her...
PA:Empics Sport Fanny Blankers-Koen crushed sexist stereotypes with her athletic achievements
Who was Fanny Blankers-Koen?
Fanny Blankers-Koen was born Francina Elsje Koen on April 26, 1918 in Lage Vuursche, a small village in the Netherlands.
The daughter of a government official who competed in the discus and shot put, she was an athletic teenager who excelled in tennis, swimming and gymnastics.
However, it was as a runner that Blankers-Koen made the biggest impression, and she set a national 800m record in just her third race.
Times Newspapers Ltd Blankers-Koen opted for the track despite excelling at a range of sports
At the age of 18, she appeared in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, coming joint-sixth in the high jump and fifth in the 4x100m relay.
During the games, she also secured the autograph of Jesse Owens, the iconic black American athlete who embarrassed Hitler's Nazi regime with four gold medals.
She married former triple jumper and sports journalist Jan Blankers in August 1940 during World War Two, and gave birth to their first child, Jan Junior, the following year.
Although at the time it was expected that female athletes would retire when they started having children, Blankers-Koen was in training within weeks of her son's birth.
Competing in German-occupied Holland she went from strength to strength, establishing six world records between 1942 and 1944.
Google A Google Doodle celebrates the Dutch athlete on her 100th birthday
The birth of her second child, Fanny Junior, came just six weeks before the first major post-war athletics meeting.
Despite this, she took took two gold medals at the 1946 European Championships in Oslo, in the 80m hurdles and 4x100m relay.
The biggest triumph of Blankers-Koen's glittering career came two years later.
Ahead of the 1948 Olympics in London she was written off by many, and criticised by those who thought she should stop competing to focus on being a wife and mother.
She proved them wrong in spectacular fashion, winning gold medals in the 100m, 80m hurdles, 200m and 4x100m, becoming the first woman to take four golds in a single Olympics.
AP:Associated Press Blankers-Koen defied critics to make history in the 1948 London Olympics
Earning her the nickname "The Flying Housewife", her achievements crushed stereotypes and showed the world that female athletes could have a family while competing – and winning – at the highest level.
Although she made the Dutch squad for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki at the age of 34, she was hampered by injury and it proved her final top level event.
After her athletic career came to an end Blankers-Koen served as team leader for the Dutch athletics team for 10 years.
She died on January 25 2004 at the age of 85, after suffering from Azheimer's disease in her later years.
Reuters Blankers-Koen, pictured with Carl Lewis, remained in athletics after retiring
What is a Google Doodle?
In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.
The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
Google Google celebrated the Autumn Equinox with a themed doodle
In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.
Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.
Among the Doodles published in recent months were ones commemorating German scientist Robert Koch, Jan Ingenhousz (who discovered photosynthesis) and the 50th anniversary of kids coding languages being introduced.
In September last year, the search giant celebrated the Autumn Equinox , which marked the official ending of summer and the coming of autumn.
Seventy years ago, at the 1948 London Olympics, Fanny Blankers-Koen emerged as an unlikely athletic star.
The six-foot-tall, 30-year-old Dutch track athlete and mother of two became the first woman ever to win four gold medals in a single Olympics. She also won the 200m by 0.7 second—the highest margin in Olympic 200m history and a record that still stands today.
Nicknamed “the Flying Housewife,” Blankers-Koen achieved this feat while pregnant with her third child. During the games she was “as well-known to Olympic patrons as King George of England,” according to Smithsonian magazine.
Today’s Google Doodle is celebrating Blankers-Koen on what would have been her 100th birthday (she died in 2004 at the age of 85).
Who was Fanny Blankers-Koen?
Francina Elsje Koen was born on April 26, 1918 in Holland. An avid athlete from early childhood, Koen began competing in track events and set a national record in the 800m at the age of 17. A year later, she qualified in trials for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. She competed, but didn’t medal in her events, though she did manage to get an autograph from her hero, African-American track star Jesse Owens.
She married her running coach in 1940 and when the couple had their first son, Blankers-Koen immediately resumed her training within weeks of his birth.
Fanny Blankers-Koen and her husband, Jan. (AP)
The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were canceled because of World War II, and many thought Blankers-Koen had missed her chance at Olympic gold. When she announced her intention to compete in the 1948 London games, she drew criticism from the public.
”I got very many bad letters, people writing that I must stay home with my children and that I should not be allowed to run on a track with—how do you say it?—short trousers,” she told the New York Times in 1982.
When the British team manager, Jack Crump, first saw Blankers-Koen, he said she was “too old to make the grade.” Little did he or anyone else on the team know she was already three months pregnant and only running twice a week in preparation for the games.
The 1948 London Olympic games
The London Olympics kicked off on July 28, 1948 in sweltering heat as King George opened the ceremonies at Wembley Stadium in front of a crowd of 80,000 people.
King George VI shakes hands with members of the International Olympic Committee during the opening ceremony of the 1948 London games. (AP)
Blankers-Koen easily won a gold medal in her first event, the 100m sprint, and got her second in a photo finish in the 80m hurdles, but her greatest victory was still ahead of her.
In the 200m, she outraced all of her opponents to win by 0.7 second, the biggest margin in Olympic history and a record no one has beat since. She went on to help her team come back from fourth place to win the 4×100 relay, making her the first woman to win four gold medals in a single Olympics (a feat Jesse Owens achieved for men at the 1936 games).
Her athletic accomplishments didn’t just set records, Blankers-Koen’s performance at the games shattered stereotypes about age and gender for elite athletes in sports.
Blankers-Koen winning the last lap of the 400m relay final. (AP)
Despite her stellar performance, media coverage of her at the time was layered with sexism. The press dubbed Blankers-Koen “the Flying Housewife.” Reporters described her running “like she was chasing kids out of the pantry” and “racing to the kitchen to rescue a batch of burning biscuits,” Smithsonian noted.
Though Blankers-Koen is one of the most decorated female athletes of the 20th century, she remains largely forgotten by history. She returned home not to international superstardom and millions in endorsements deals, but her normal life as a wife and mother (and a new bicycle). She competed again in the 1952 Olympics, though she didn’t medal, and went on to become the leader of the Dutch athletics team from 1958 to 1968.
When she attended the 1972 Olympics in Munich, she met Jesse Owens again and introduced herself, telling him she still had the autograph from all those years ago.
“You don’t have to tell me who you are,” her hero replied. “I know everything about you.”
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On a rainy summer day in 1948, onlookers at London’s Wembley track saw an unexpected athlete make history. Dutch runner and 30-year-old mother of two Fanny Blankers-Koen outstrided her opponents in the women’s 200m by 0.7 seconds—the highest margin in Olympics 200m history and a record that still stands today.
Born near Baarn, the Netherlands, in 1918, Blankers-Koen had set a national record for the women’s 800m by age 17. At 18, she competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, placing fifth in the 4x100m and sixth in high jump.
After the 1940 and 1944 Olympics were canceled, many thought Blankers-Koen would never make another Olympics. When she declared her intentions to compete in the 1948 London Games, she received letters from many criticizing her for continuing to race despite being a mother and insisting she stay home.
But words couldn’t break Blankers-Koen’s stride. She captured four golds during the 1948 London Games, winning the 100m, 80m hurdles, 200m, and 4x100m relay to become the first woman to win four medals in a single Olympics. Her quick feet didn’t just set records. Blankers-Koen’s accomplishments flattened stereotypes of female athletes at the time, earning her the nickname “The Flying Housewife.”
Today, we celebrate what would’ve been her 100th birthday with a Doodle that imagines her racing down the track, smiling mid-stride.
Happy birthday, Fanny!
