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 old 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 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-metre dash, 80-metre 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, on January 25, 2004.
Two Olympics medals is enough. Fanny Blankers-Koen
Today marks the centenary of legendary Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen (1918-2004).
The track star who won four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London is celebrated in today's Google Doodle.
Here are five things you need to know about her.
1. Her husband and coach Jan was originally against women competing in sport
Francina Elsje Koen was born in Lage Vuursche, the Netherlands, on 26 April 1918, the daughter of a government official who encouraged her early sporting interests and himself competed in shot put and discus.
Choosing running over swimming as her primary discipline, Fanny set a national record for the 800 metres at age 17. Called up to the Dutch international team, she met her coach and future husband Jan Blankers.
Blankers, a former Olympic triple-jumper who was 15 years her senior, had originally been opposed to women competing in sport at all, a not uncommon attitude for the period.
However, Fanny's clear potential persuaded him to change his mind and he encouraged her to enter trials for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
2. Jesse Owens was her inspiration
Competing in the high jump and 4 x 100 metre relay in Germany, Koen finished fifth in both events but her real prize at those historic games was meeting her hero.
Fanny was so starstruck to meet Jesse Owens - the black American sprinter whose four gold medal haul embarrassed Adolf Hitler and severely undermined the Fuhrer's racist rhetoric on his home turf - that she got his autograph and kept it for the rest of her life, considering it her prized possession.
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3. She was written off when the Second World War broke out
After winning two bronzes at the European Championships in Vienna in 1938, the outbreak of the Second World War saw the 1940 and 1944 Olympics cancelled as Europe became a theatre of bloodshed.
Fanny Blankers-Koen, who had married in 1940 and given birth to a son a year later and a daughter in 1946, was assumed to be "too old to make the grade" at age 30 when the Games were finally revived at London's Wembley Stadium in 1948.
Blankers-Koen competing in the hurdles at the 1948 London Games (Getty)
Her extraordinary, four gold medal-winning performance in the UK proved her doubters wrong and was attributed to the athlete's dogged commitment to training throughout the war, despite the suspension of domestic competition in the German-occupied Netherlands.
She had returned to the track just three weeks after Jan Junior was born and even tied the world 100 metres record in 1943, ignoring letters from members of the public critical of her for competing rather than staying at home to care for her family.
Journalist Kees Kooman, her biographer, later suggested that: "If it hadn't been for the Second World War, she would have won seven, eight, nine Olympic gold medals."
4. She became known as 'The Flying Housewife'
Blankers-Koen won golds in the 100 metres, 200 metres, 80 metres hurdles and 4 x 100 metres relay in the London rain but arguably her greater achievement lay in smashing contemporary expectations.
The athlete who would be immortalised as as "the Flying Housewife" made a nonsense of the sexist assumptions of the period about what was and was not possible and respectable for a woman, her running shoes blazing a trail for others to follow.
On returning to the Netherlands, she was met with a hero's welcome. In Amsterdam, she was paraded around the city in a coach pulled by four horses and presented with a bicycle before Queen Juliana made her a knight of the Order of Orange Nassau.
5. She was named Female Athlete of the 20th Century
Her place in history assured, Fanny Blankers-Koen continued to compete, taking three further golds at the 1950 European Championships in Brussels before retiring in 1955 and living a relatively private life thereafter.
Mr Kooman said of her character off the field: "[She] was very complicated. I think most real sports stars are. It is why they reach the top.
"Fanny wasn't only the shy, nice Dutch housewife. Sport was everything to her and she wanted to win in everything. If she was out on her bike and someone was ahead of her she had to beat them."
The darker side to her personality was revealed by the part she is rumoured to have played in 1950 in discrediting Foekje Dillema, a younger rival who broke Fanny's national 200 metre record before her gender was called into question and she was banned from athletics for life. Fanny is also understood to have had a difficult relationship with her children.
Photo essay: Britain's 1948 Olympians today
9 show all Photo essay: Britain's 1948 Olympians today
1/9 Dame Mary Glen Haig (b. 1918), London, 2007 Fencer. Having competed in four Olympic Games, she was the first female member of the International Olympic Committee at the same time as working as an executive in London’s largest hospitals. Copyright Katherine Green
2/9 John Peake (b. 1924), Peterborough, 2012 Hockey (silver medal). A Cambridge graduate and Engineer. Copyright Katherine Green
3/9 John & Dorothy Parlett (b. 1925 & 1927), Essex, 2007. Runners Dorothy, nicknamed 'the secretary from Essex' won silver in the 100m, coming second to Fanny Blankers-Koen. John worked as a graphic designer. Copyright Katherine Green
4/9 Jimmy McColl (b. 1924), Edinburgh, 2012. Jimmy turned professional after the 1948 Olympic Games, playing for Queen of the South. Copyright Katherine Green
5/9 George Weedon (b. 1920), London, 2010. Gymnast. Also an accomplished ballroom dancer, springboard diver and qualified in acrobatic ballet, Weedon taught physical education.
6/9 Edwin Bowey (b. 1924) London, 2011. Freestyle Wrestler. Sport gave Edwin a taste for discovery, he later lived in New Zealand, became a lumberjack there, then a gardener back in London as well as following a life long interest in Yoga. Copyright Katherine Green
7/9 Donald Scott (b. 1928), Derby, 2007 Middleweight Boxer (silver medal winner) A Corporal physical training instructor in the Royal Military Police, Don turned professional in 1950. Copyright Katherine Green
8/9 Cathie Gibson (b. 1931), Dunfermline, 2008 Swimmer (bronze medal winner) At one stage Cathie held 29 British records, and was so well known that Madame Tussauds made a model of her. Copyright Katherine Green
9/9 Dorothy Tyler (b. 1920), Surrey, 2008. High Jump (silver medal winner). She competed in three Olympic Games winning silver in Berlin in 1936. Dorothy was a driver for the army during the war. She still plays golf competitively. Copyright Katherine Green
Blankers-Koen suffered from Alzheimer's in later life and died in Hoofddorp on 25 January 2004 - but not before receiving one final honour.
The International Association of Athletics Federation named her "Female Athlete of the Century" at a gala in Monaco in 1999.
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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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If it wasn't for Fanny Blankers-Koen, the likes of Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill or Serena Williams might never have been given the platform to star on the global sporting stage.
One of the most decorated women athletes of all time, Blankers-Koen starred at the 1948 Olympics in London, winning gold in the 100m, 200m, 80m hurdles and 4x100m relay.
During her career, she held an impressive 12 world records.
But what makes her athletic achievements so much more significant is the adversity she had to overcome along the way.
At the time of her prominence, Blankers-Koen was a 30-year-old mother-of-two - two things that attracted derision.
By brushing off criticism, the Dutch track star broke down gender barriers, becoming a trailblazer for every woman athlete who preceded her.
On Thursday, on what would have been her 100th birthday, Google is honouring her with a Doodle, imagining her racing along a track, smiling mid-stride.
Here is the story of the athlete dubbed The Flying Housewife...
(Image: Getty)
Fanny Blankers-Koen's early life and World War 2
Born near Baarn, the Netherlands, in 1918, Blankers-Koen was the only daughter in a family with five sons.
As a teenager she took to tennis, swimming, gymnastics, ice skating and fencing but picked running as her main sport after a swimming coach suggested that would be the best way to excel.
It proved the right decision, as she had set a national record for the women’s 800m by age 17, in just her third race.
But as a precursor to what she would fight against later in her career, the Dutch Olympic committee removed the distance from their programme as they felt 800m was too far for women.
At 18, she competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, placing fifth in the 4x100m and sixth in high jump.
During the controversial Games, she met American star Jessie Owens and received an autograph.
(Image: Getty)
The signature became her most treasured possession, and after catching up with Owens later, having emulated her hero the ground breaking pair had a poignant conversation.
Blankers-Koen remembered: "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.'"
World War 2 broke out in 1939, which stunted the amount of Olympic medals she could have won, during which she married Jan Blankers, a former triple-jumper.
(Image: Getty Images Sport Classic)
With Jan, she had two children.
After giving birth to Jan Junior in 1941, she returned to training within two weeks and between 1942 and 1944 set six world records, all while undergoing rationing.
In 1946, two years before her most famous achievements, Blankers-Koen won a pair of golds at the European Championships in Oslo in the 80m hurdles and 4x100m relay
How Blankers-Koen killed motherhood myths at 1948 Olympics
(Image: Getty)
On a rainy summer day in 1948, onlookers at London’s Wembley track saw an unexpected athlete make history.
Blankers-Koen, a 30-year-old mum-of-two 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.
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 criticising her for continuing to race despite being a mother and insisting she stay home.
(Image: Popperfoto)
British Athletics chief Jack Crump said she was "too old to make the grade."
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.
All that while in the early stages of her third pregnancy.
She singlehandedly killed the chauvinist myths around motherhood and medals.
Alongside her glittering medals, she was presented with a bicycle by the city of Amsterdam.
Why was Blankers-Koen known as The Flying Housewife?
(Image: Getty)
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.
What happened in Blankers-Koen's later career?
Just two years after her glory in London, Blankers-Koen travelled to Brussels for the European Championships and almost repeated her heroics.
After claiming gold in the 100m, 200m and 80m hurdles, she only managed silver in the relay.
(Image: Hulton Archive)
Blankers-Koen, now 34, travelled to the 1952 Olympics, which were held in Helsinki but despite qualifying for the hurdles final, pulled up after hitting two hurdles.
She immediately walked out from the rest of the Games, before retiring from competitions three years later - her final title coming in the shot put and added her 58th Dutch crown.
After hanging up her running spikes she moved back to Amsterdam, where a statue was erected.
(Image: S&G and Barratts)
Blankers-Koen, who was unable to make a great deal of money despite numerous sponsorship offers due to the amateur rule in the Olympics, was never jealous of the multi-millionaire athletes she laid the track for.
She once said of American sprint star Marion Jones: "She trains twice a day. We only trained twice a week."
In 1999, the International Association of Athletics Federation awarded her the title of 'Female Athlete of the Century', to which she shockingly replied "You mean it is me who has won?"
During her later years, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease and became deaf, before dying in a nursing home aged 85 in 2004.
What is Blankers-Koen's most famous quote?
(Image: PA Archive)
"All I’ve done is run fast. I don’t see why people should make much fuss about that."
