Dawn Fraser was born into a poor family on the 4th of September 1937; she was the youngest of eight children, three brothers and four sisters. She lived in a house in Balmain, Australia.
Dawn was a very sick child, and had chronic asthma and other chest diseases, it got to such a stage that her parents thought that she had , a deadly illness that attacks your chest. Fortunately, she found a miracle cure, the local swimming pool, Elkington Park Baths, now renamed, The Dawn Fraser Swimming Pool. The combination of the chlorine smell and worm air opened her airways and helped her breath. Her brother, Don noticed how much she loved going too the pool and decided to give her lessons. But sadly he passed away when you were 13 years old. Later, you were heard to say, ?I can remember crawling through the window where he was in the hospital.
Dawn
Coles' Olympic Games decorations, December, 1956. ...
English: Lapel badge of the 1964 National Olympic ...He asked me?he said, ?you have a gift?keep training for me?. I s?pose those were the last words he ever spoke to me.?
The next year an acclaimed coach, Harry Gallagher, noticed her, and thought that he would coach her. One of the main reasons that he wanted to coach her was that she was obsessive to win.
In 1955 Dawn broke the Australian record for the 220-yard freestyle. In the South Australian Championships she won all the freestyle events from the 100-yard freestyle to the 880-yard freestyle, and that is when she started training vigorously. Her average day consisted of getting up at around 4.30 in the morning, and arriving at the pool by 5 o?clock to swim 4 miles. She?d then go to work, and during lunch she?d swim þ of a mile. After all that swimming, she?d go back to work, and after...