Australian sprinter, she won the Australian junior 100 metres title in
11.3 seconds at the age of 15. Shortly before the 1956 Olympic games,
she broke the world record for the 200 metres, and went on to win
Olympic gold medals for the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4 X 100 metres
relay, setting three Olympic records and the world record for the
relay. Over the next nine years she set 16 world records, 11 individual
and 5 relay, culminating in a fourth gold medal (for the 400 metres) at
the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. The second woman to win four track gold
medals (Fanny Blankers-Koen was the first), in 1981 she was diagnosed
as having multiple sclerosis.
