They are still held every year in Hengelo in the Netherlands. The Fanny Blankers-Koen Games, an international athletics event, was established in 1981 in Fanny’s honor. I don’t see why people should make much fuss about that.” After retiring from her athletic career, Blankers-Koen served as the team leader of the Dutch athletics team for several years. It made me proud to know I had been able to bring joy into people’s lives.”įanny went on to compete in the 1952 Olympics at the age of 34. “imes were harsh and people were glad of the opportunity to celebrate anything. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands even made her a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, a chivalry order open to “everyone who has earned special merits for society”. Welcomed home to Amsterdam with an immense crowd, Fanny was showered with praise and gifts, including a bicycle from the city itself so she could “go through life at a slower pace” and “need not run so much”. But after receiving the baton she managed to overtake the Australian and Canadian competitors and her team came in first, winning Fanny her fourth gold medal in the 1948 Olympics.Īround the world Fanny was dubbed “The Flying Housewife”, “The Flying Dutchmam”, and “Amazing Fanny”. She was the last runner in the relay, and her team was behind.
Still, she arrived just in time to compete. In the pouring rain, Fanny ran the 200-meter, finishing 7/10 of a second before the the runner-up-the largest margin of victory in any Olympic 200m final.įanny was a bit late for her final event, the 4×100 relay, because she had gone out to shop for a raincoat. After a long talk with her husband, who had first been her coach, she decided to stay. In the hurdles, she thought she had been beaten but a close examination of the finish photo clearly showed that she had won again.ĭespite her amazing success, Fanny almost withdrew at the end of that day, overcome with homesickness. In the 100 meter, she easily sped to the finish line past her opponents, winning her first gold and becoming the first Dutch athlete to win an Olympic title in athletics. She chose four events: the 100 meter, the 200 meter, and 80 meter hurdles, and the 4 x 100 meter relay. Still, as the leading athlete in the Netherlands, Fanny qualified for the Olympics. The British athletic team’s manager claimed she was “too old to make the grade”, and many journalists questioned her on her age. People also said that at 30 years old, she was too old to be competing. When I got to London, I pointed my finger at him and I said: ‘I show you.’“ “One newspaperman wrote that I was too old to run, that I should stay at home and take care of my children.
“ I got very many bad letters, people writing that I must stay home with my children.” At the time, top female athetes who were married were extremely rare, and it was inconceivable that a mother would be an athlete. When she had had her first child, many assumed it was the end of her athletic career. Though Fanny went on to train, setting her first world record and winning international medals, she was unable to compete in the Olympics again for many years: World War II put a stop to the 19 Olympics.īy the time of the first post-war Olympics in 1948 in London, Fanny was 30 years old, and married with a 7-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. 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.” Isn’t that incredible? Jesse Owens knew who I was. She was the first woman to win four Olympic gold medals, and the first one to do so in a single Olympics.īorn Francina Elsje Koen, Fanny first competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin at 18 years old, where she didn’t win but was able to get the autograph of her hero, track and field athlete Jesse Owens. In the 1948 Olympics in London, the 30-year-old mother of two won four gold medals and set world records - while pregnant with her third child. Fanny Blankers-Koen (1918–2004) was a Dutch Olympic athlete known as the Flying Housewife.
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