Fanny Blankers-Koen

Fanny Blankers-Koen, nicknamed 'the Flying Housewife', became the first woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics at London 1948 and was voted Female Athlete of the 20th Century.

When journalists dismissed 30-year-old Fanny Blankers-Koen as too old to compete at the 1948 London Olympics, she responded by winning four gold medals in eight days — 100m, 80m hurdles, 200m, and relay — a feat no woman has matched at a single Games in the seventy-five years since.. She set a national record in the 800m at just 17, and qualified for the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the high jump and 4x100m relay, finishing sixth and fifth respectively without medalling. She married her coach, Jan Blankers, in 1940, and World War II wiped out the 1940 and 1944 Olympics during what should have been her athletic prime. By 1948, Blankers-Koen was a 30-year-old mother of two young children, already pregnant with her third, and held six world records heading into the London Olympics. Many in the press dismissed her as too old to compete, comments that only sharpened her resolve. At the Games, she won gold in the 100m, the 80m hurdles, the 200m — by a still-standing Olympic record margin of 0.7 seconds — and anchored the Dutch 4x100m relay team to victory after a rocky changeover, becoming the first woman in Olympic history to win four gold medals at a single Games. Rules at the time limited women to three individual events, or she may well have won more; she also held world records in the long jump and high jump that she never got to defend in London. Blankers-Koen returned home to a hero's welcome and continued competing successfully at the 1950 European Championships, winning three more individual golds, before injury ended her push for a third Olympics at Helsinki 1952. She retired from competition in 1955 having set or shared 13 world records across sprinting, hurdling, and jumping — an extraordinary range for a single athlete — and later served as manager of the Dutch athletics team and president of the Dutch athletics federation. In 1999 the IAAF named her Female Athlete of the 20th Century.

Extraordinarily versatile all-round athlete excelling across sprints, hurdles, and jumping events

Widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes in history and a pioneering figure who broke barriers around age and motherhood in elite sport

• 4x Olympic gold medallist (1948)
• European champion, 80m hurdles (1946, 1950)
• European champion, 100m and 4x100m relay (1950)
• IAAF Female Athlete of the 20th Century (1999)
• 13 world records across jumping, hurdling, and sprinting