Shirley Strickland de la Hunty

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Shirley Strickland athletics

Shirley Strickland.jpg
Shirley Strickland statue in front of the Melbourne Cricket Ground

Full name Shirley Barbara Strickland de la Hunty
nation AustraliaAustralia Australia
birthday July 18, 1925
place of birth Northam
size 172 cm
Weight 57 kg
date of death February 11, 2004
Place of death Perth
Career
discipline Sprint , hurdles
Best performance 11.3 s ( 100 m )
24.1 s ( 200 m )
10.89 s ( 80 m hurdles )
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × gold 1 × silver 3 × bronze
Commonwealth Games 3 × gold 2 × silver 0 × bronze
Olympic rings Olympic games
silver London 1948 4 × 100 m
bronze London 1948 100 m
bronze London 1948 80 m hurdles
gold Helsinki 1952 80 m hurdles
bronze Helsinki 1952 100 m
gold Melbourne 1956 80 m hurdles
gold Melbourne 1956 4 × 100 m
Commonwealth Games Federation logo Commonwealth Games
gold Auckland 1950 80 m hurdles
gold Auckland 1950 3 × 110/220 yds
gold Auckland 1950 4 × 220/110 yds
silver Auckland 1950 100 yds
silver Auckland 1950 220 yds

Shirley Strickland de la Hunty (born Shirley Barbara Strickland ; born July 18, 1925 in Northam , † February 11, 2004 in Perth ) was an Australian athlete . She won three gold, one silver and three bronze medals at the Olympic Games.

life and career

Strickland was born in the state of Western Australia and attended the universities of Applecross and Melville , which she graduated with two degrees in 1945 and 1946. The following year she devoted her training and was already in 1948 Australian champion over 80 m hurdles. Thus she was part of the Australian Olympic team for the Olympic Games in London . On her Olympic debut, she immediately achieved a 3rd place in the 100 meter run behind the Dutch Fanny Blankers-Koen (gold) and the British Dorothy Manley (silver), a 3rd place in the 80 m hurdles behind the Dutch Fanny Blankers-Koen (gold) and the British Maureen Gardner (silver) as well as a 2nd place with the team in the 4 x 100 meter relay .

After three gold medals at the British Empire Games in 1950 , she married Laurence de la Hunty, a geologist she had taught physics. She continued her athletic career and won her first Olympic gold medal over 80 meter hurdles at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952, ahead of the Soviet athlete Marija Golubnitschaja (silver) and the German Maria Sander (bronze). In addition, she achieved a bronze medal over 100 meters behind Marjorie Jackson (gold) and Daphne Hasenjager from South Africa (silver). She missed another gold medal, believed to be safe, with the 4 x 100 meter relay because her teammate Marjorie Jackson fell off the baton by a large margin. Although this had to lift the baton again, the Australian relay reached 5th place with a time of 46.6 s. (only 2 tenths of a second above the world record before the 1952 Games )

In 1955 she set a new world record over 100 meters in Poland . At the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 , she again won the gold medal over the 80 meter hurdles in front of the GDR athlete Gisela Koehler (silver) and the Australian Norma Thrower (bronze). Over 100 meters, the world record holder was surprisingly eliminated in the heats, but then won team gold in the 4 x 100 meter relay with her teammates Norma Croker , Fleur Mellor and Betty Cuthbert in front of the teams from Great Britain and the USA.

After the last gold medals, Strickland de la Hunty ended her active international career as a sportswoman, but took part in national championships until 1962 and devoted herself to her family and, with her experience, the Australian teams, which she also attended the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City and accompanied in Montreal in 1976 . She also got actively involved in politics as a candidate for the Australian Democrats and was the spokesperson for several associations and committees.

Strickland de la Hunty won more Olympic medals in her active sports career than any other Australian athlete in a running discipline and set 13 new world records between 1952 and 1956.

At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney , she was next to Betty Cuthbert, Raelene Boyle , Dawn Fraser , Shane Gould and Debbie Flintoff-King an outstanding six women of the Australian sporting history that the torch with the Olympic flame through the round of the Olympic Stadium wore before Cathy Freeman lit the flame.

In 2014 she was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame .

literature

  • Ekkehard zur Megede: The Modern Olympic Century 1896-1996 Track and Field Athletics. Berlin 1999 (published by the German Society for Athletics Documentation e.V.)

Web links

Commons : Shirley Strickland  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "The Olympic Games 1952 Oslo and Helsinki" p. 89, Ed. German Olympic Society
  2. Sydney Olympic Park: Eight Women - Urban Art