Dawn Fraser: "Horror" who won Australian hearts THE young Dawn Fraser led a lifestyle that if transported to the present, would horrify parents let alone swimming coaches. Her manners wouldn't have modern performance gurus rushing to earmark her as a star, either. Harry Gallagher, however, saw something in the foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking 14-year-old girl he would describe later as "a horror." It was speed. Their first meeting in 1937 has gone down in Australian sporting folklore - Fraser, furious at the invasion of "her pool" at Balmain's public baths in Sydney, told the coach to "p*** off" after he suggested she join his group - and her incomparable achievements are treasured by a grateful nation who didn't mind her confrontational nature one bit. Fraser broke new ground as the first woman to swim the 100 metres freestyle in less than a minute. She won eight Olympic medals, four of them gold, and set 39 world records during an astonishing career. But it was in her home country, in 1962, that her compatriots finally got the chance to join in the fun of her endlessly rewarding pursuit of glory. It was hot and dry in the Western Australian capital of Perth, over 40C most days, but that brought no obvious impediment to an Antipodean swimmer so Fraser systematically went about dominating the meet. Already holding a gold and silver from Cardiff four years previously, Fraser won the 110 and 440 yards freestyle and added two relay golds, in the 4x110yds freestyle and 4x110yds medley. Her sprint freestyle win was perhaps the moment that really made Australia stand still. That was the race in which she broke the world record and ducked under the minute barrier by timing 59.9secs - a mark that stood until the mid-1970s. Now confirmed as a national darling - she was voted Australia's greatest ever female athlete at an awards ceremony in Canberra earlier this year - Fraser's outspoken and sometimes petulant ways meant the only people who never fell in love with her were the Australian swimming authorities, who banned her for ten years in 1964 for no stated reason. Having always courted trouble, it was unclear which particular misdemeanour had brought Fraser's career to an end but she would explain it by simply stating: "I guess I retired four years earlier than I wanted to." An extraordinary lifecontinued with Fraser surviving a car crash that killed her mother, turning her hand - and her tongue - to politics, and finally being appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1998. She is still with us, aged 76, still campaigning for charitable causes and still breathing fire on any topic that gets heranimated.