Fraser, Dawn (1937-…), a champion Australian swimmer, won three successive gold medals in the women’s 100-meter freestyle race at three consecutive Summer Olympic Games. She won the gold medal in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956; in Rome in 1960; and in Tokyo in 1964. She also became the first woman to swim this distance in less than a minute, with a time of 59.9 seconds in 1962. Fraser won a fourth Olympic gold medal as part of the winning 4×100-meter freestyle team in 1956. She also won four silver medals in the Olympics. During her career, Fraser set 27 individual world records and helped set 12 world records in relay events.
Fraser became one of the most popular and honored athletes in the history of Australian sports. In 1967, she received the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to sport. At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, she was honored as one of the seven greatest athletes by the Atlanta Olympic Organizing Committee. In 1999, the Sport Australia Hall of Fame named her the Australian Female Athlete of the Century. In 2018, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Fraser Companion of the Order of Australia, the highest level of Australia’s awards for service to the country or to humanity.
Dawn Lorraine Fraser was born in Balmain, a suburb of Sydney, on Sept. 4, 1937. She was named Australian of the Year in 1964. Her swimming career ended in 1965, when the Australian Amateur Swimming Association suspended her from competition for 10 years. She was accused of stealing the Olympic flag during the 1964 games by climbing a flagpole on the grounds of the Imperial Palace, where the Japanese emperor lived. Fraser denied taking the flag, but the ban was not lifted until four years later. In 1988, she was elected to the New South Wales Parliament and held the seat until 1991. She wrote an autobiography, Dawn: One Hell of a Life (2001).
