Description:

FROM 1956 OLYMPIC GAMES MELBOURNE/AUSTRALIA

 The 1956 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in 1956, apart from the equestrian events, which were held five months earlier in Stockholm, Sweden. Equestrian could not be held in Australia due to quarantine regulations. This was the second Olympics not to be held entirely in one country, the first being the 1920 Summer Olympics. The 1956 Games were the first to be staged in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as the first to be held outside Europe and North America.

Olympic Games Melbourne

Lorraine Crapp Australia Swimming

Button Badge Pin

Lorraine Crapp

Lorraine Joyce Thurlow, AM (born 1 October 1938), née Crapp, is a former Olympic swimming champion representing Australia. In world swimming history, Crapp earned a place as the first woman to break the five-minute barrier in the 400 m freestyle.

Born in 1938, as a young girl Crapp lived with her parents at Jervis Bay where her father was with a Royal Australian Air Force Air Sea Rescue Unit. By the age of five she was a competent swimmer. When the family moved to Mortlake she joined the Cabarita Swimming Club and by the age of 12 was the winner of all her age events in freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke.

In 1952, Crapp was selected in the New South Wales team for the Australian Championships in Melbourne, where she came second to Olympian Judy Davis in the senior 880 yards. She won the junior 200 yards and she was still only 13 years old.

In 1954, Crapp won the 110 yard freestyle and 440 yard freestyle gold medals and a bronze medal in 3×110 yard medley relay at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver at the age of 15.^[1]

In 1956 Crapp broke 17 world records and by the end of the year she was the world record holder for 110 yards, 200 m, 400 m and 880 yards. She was the first Australian swimmer, male or female, to hold world records in all freestyle distances at the same time. On 25 August 1956 at the Australian National Training Camp at Tobruk Pool in Townsville, Queensland, she became the first woman to break the five minute barrier for 400 m freestyle; along the way she broke three other world records – 200 m, 220 yd and 440 yd. Although she improved on all times later in her career, her four world records in one swim (she slashed 18.2 seconds from the previous 400 m record to clock 4 min 47.2 seconds), made headlines around the world.

She competed in two Olympic Games — the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 1960 Summer Olympics. She won two Olympic gold medals and one Olympic silver medal in 1956 and one Olympic silver medal in 1960.^[2] Crapp's 16-year-old cousin Robert Crapp was one of the 1956 Olympic Torch Bearers selected to relay the Olympic Flame 2750 miles from Cairns to Melbourne with each runner carrying the flame 1 mile.

In 1956, Crapp won the Olympic 400 m freestyle (Olympic record) title easily when she beat teammate Dawn Fraser by 7.9 seconds in a time which was 17.5 seconds inside the previous Olympic record. Fraser reversed this result in the 100 m freestyle (both beating the previous world record) and the pair then combined with Faith Leech and Sandra Morgan to win gold for Australia in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay (world record).

In 1957, Crapp was awarded the city of Genoa Christopher Columbus Trophy as the outstanding athlete in the world.

In 1958, Crapp won a gold medal in the 4×110 yards freestyle relay, a silver medal in the 110 yards freestyle and a bronze in the 440 yards freestyle at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff but she was never again a world record breaker.^[3]

In 1960, Crapp bowed out of international competition with a silver medal in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay at the Rome Olympics. On the eve of her departure for the 1960 Rome Games, Crapp married Dr. Bill Thurlow, a medical officer attached to the Australian team.^[4] In 1964, Thurlow won a 100,000 pounds lottery prize, which he planned to use for setting up a health centre for disabled people.^[5]

During her career Crapp set twenty-three world records and won 9 Australian championship titles.^[6] In 1972, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame,^[7] and in 1986 into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.^[6] On 8 June 1998, she was named as Member of the Order of Australia for "service to sport, particularly swimming at national and international levels, and to the community through the promotion of sport and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle."^[8]

On 8 February 2000, Crapp was awarded the Australian Sports Medal in recognition of her and teammates' efforts in winning the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay at the 1956 Olympics.^[9] The same year she was one of the eight flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. On 1 January 2001, Crapp was awarded the Centenary Medal for "service to Australian society through the sport of swimming."^[10]

Lorraine Crapp is one of nine "Legends" of the Path of Champions at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

This Badge Pin is in very good condition.

Lorraine Crapp

Personal information
Full name	Lorraine Joyce Crapp
National team	Australia
Born	1 October 1938 (age 82) Sydney, New South Wales
Height	1.67 m (5 ft 6 in)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Freestyle
Medal record Women's swimming Representing Australia Olympic Games 1956 Melbourne 400 m freestyle 1956 Melbourne 4×100 m freestyle 1956 Melbourne 100 m freestyle 1960 Rome 4×100 m freestyle British Empire and Commonwealth Games 1954 Vancouver 110 yd freestyle 1954 Vancouver 440 yd freestyle 1958 Cardiff 4×110 yd freestyle 1958 Cardiff 110 yd freestyle 1954 Vancouver 3×110 yd medley 1958 Cardiff 440 yd freestyle

Lorraine Crapp was one of the group of champions, male and female, who spearheaded Australia’s domination of world swimming in the ’50s.

Lorraine, with 23 world records (16 individual and seven relay), was the first great swimmer of the modern era of Australian swimming; this in spite of the fact that her style resembled the traditional body flat on the water, six-beat kick American crawl that the Australians were replacing with their rolling perpetual motion centre line crawl with a two-beat kick. She had been a youthful protégé of Dawn Fraser’s mentor Harry Gallagher, but at 16 switched to the coaching of Frank Guthrie.

She burst into prominence in 1954 with her 11 minute 880yds, and heralded the coming of a new wave of Aussie world record swimmers to dominate the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. She won the Australian 110yds and 220yds freestyle titles in 1954 and the 440yds freestyle championships in 1954, 1955 and 1956.

At the 1954 Vancouver British Empire and Commonwealth Games, she won gold in the 100yds and 440yds freestyle, and bronze in the medley relay; at the 1958 Cardiff British Empire and Commonwealth Games she won gold in the freestyle relay, silver in the 100m freestyle and bronze in the 440yds freestyle.

The most remarkable swim of her life did not involve a gold medal. On August 25, 1956 at Townsville, Queensland, she became the first woman ever to break the five minute barrier for 400m freestyle; along the way she broke three other world records – 200m, 220yds and 44yds. Although she improved on all times later in her career, her four world records in one swim (she slashed 18.2 seconds from the previous 400m record to clock 4min 47.2 seconds), made headlines around the world. Later that year on October 20, 1956, Lorraine again broke four world records in one swim. Establishing the 100yds, 220yds, and 400m freestyle records on her way to the 440yds record. By the end of 1956, she held world records for 100yds, 200m, 400m, 440yds, 800m, and 880yds. She entered the 1956 Olympics as one of the hottest favourites in the history of women’s swimming.

Lorraine was a leading member of the Australian swimming team that dominated the pool at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics – and a great early rival of Dawn Fraser. Coming into the Games they shared the world 100m record. In the Olympic 100m final, Dawn beat Lorraine in a tight finish, with both under world-record time (Crapp’s time was 1:02.3). Faith Leech made it a 1-2-3 victory for Australia. In the only other individual women’s freestyle event, 400m, Crapp drew away from Fraser after two laps to win easily in Olympic record time of 5:54.6. Fraser finished second.

Australia’s squad of Dawn, Sandra, Sandra Morgan and Lorraine, swimming in that order, set a world record to win gold in the 4x100m relay in a time of 4:17.1. She won silver with the 4x100m relay team (4:11.3), and retired afterwards.

SOUVENIR - VERY OLD/VERY NICE