Betty
Cuthbert is an Australian icon; the Golden Girl of Australian athletics.
As
an unheralded 18-year-old she won gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4 x 100m
relay at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
She
was 18, straw-blonde, and she bolted into public consciousness from virtually
nowhere. So poorly did she rate her chances of even being chosen to represent
Australia that she bought tickets to attend as a spectator.
She
overshadowed her experienced teammates Shirley Strickland and Marlene Mathews,
and went on to become becoming the first Australian, male or female, to win
three gold medals at a single Games.
Cuthbert
missed Rome in 1960 through injury and subsequently retired. But it didn’t last
long and she returned at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, to help
Australia to a Gold medal in the sprint relay.
She
began concentrating on the 400m race and went on to win Gold again at Tokyo in
1964 in the inaugural women’s 400m event.
A
woman of great religious faith, Cuthbert was enticed to run in Tokyo by a
nagging inner voice. “Sure, I ran the race,” she said later, “But God took
over. He picked them (her feet) up, and I put them down.”
During
the 2000 Sydney Olympics, sitting in a wheelchair and accompanied by Dawn
Fraser, she carried the Olympic Torch in the stadium, before Cathy Freeman lit
the Olympic Flame.
