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}} Francina "Fanny" Elsje Blankers-Koen (26 April 1918 – 25 January 2004) was a Dutch athlete, best known for winning four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She accomplished this as a 30-year-old mother of two, during a time when many disregarded women's athletics. Her background and performances earned her the nickname "the Flying Housewife". She was the most successful athlete at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Having started competing in athletics in 1935, she took part in the 1936 Summer Olympics a year later. Although international competition was hampered by World War II, Blankers-Koen set several world records during that period, in events as diverse as the long jump, the high jump, and sprint and hurdling events. Apart from her four Olympic titles, she won five European titles and 58 Dutch championships, and set or tied 12 world records – the last, pentathlon, in 1951 aged 33. She retired from athletics in 1955, after which she became captain of the Dutch female track and field team. In 1999, she was voted "Female Athlete of the Century" by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Her Olympic victories are credited with helping to eliminate the belief that age and motherhood were a barrier to success in women's sport.〔 ==Early life== Blankers-Koen was born Francina Elsje Koen on 26 April 1918 in Lage Vuursche (near Baarn) to Arnoldus and Helena Koen. Her father was a government official who competed in the shot put and discus.〔 She had five brothers.〔 As a teenager, she enjoyed tennis, swimming, gymnastics, ice skating, fencing and running. Standing , she was a natural athlete. It soon became clear she was a sports talent, but she could not decide which sport to pick. A swimming coach advised her to do track because there were already several top swimmers in the Netherlands at that time (such as Rie Mastenbroek), and she would have a better chance to qualify for the Olympics in a track event. Her first appearance in the sport was in 1935, aged 17. Her first competition was a disappointment, but in her third race, she set a national record in the 800 m. Fanny Koen soon made the Dutch team, although as a sprinter, not a middle distance runner. At that time, 800 m was generally considered too physically demanding for female contestants, and had been removed from the Olympic programme after 1928.〔 The following year, her coach and future husband, Jan Blankers, a former Olympic triple-jumper, encouraged her to enter the trials for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.〔 Only eighteen years old, she was selected to compete in the high jump and the 4 × 100 m relay. At the Berlin Olympics, the high jump and the 4 × 100 m relay competitions were held on the same day. In the high jump, she took fifth place (shared with two other jumpers) while the Dutch relay team came in fifth in the final (the sixth team in the final, Germany, was disqualified).〔 She also gained the autograph of American athlete Jesse Owens; it became her most treasured possession.〔 Slowly, Koen rose to the top. In 1938, she ran her first world record (11.0 seconds in the 100 yards), and she also won her first international medals. At the European Championships in Vienna, she won the bronze in both the 100 and 200 m,〔 which were both won by Stanisława Walasiewicz. Many observers, and Koen herself, expected her to do well at the upcoming Olympics, which were due to be held in Helsinki in July 1940. However, the outbreak of World War II put a stop to the preparations. The Olympics were formally cancelled on 2 May 1940, a week before the Netherlands was invaded. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fanny Blankers-Koen」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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