The Flying Housewife

With the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo cancelled, we look back at the greatest female Olympian of the 20th century.

by Richard Martinovich

Francina Koen was 18 years-old when she scored her most-cherished prize, an autograph from the hero of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens.

“Fanny” Koen was in Berlin competing for the Holland “athletics” -- track and field -- team in the high jump and 4 x100-meter women’s relay. Though she did not medal in an event, she performed well enough to show great potential.

Francina Eslje Koen was born in 1918 in the village of Lage Vuursche, the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. With four brothers, Fanny was active in a variety of sports growing up.

Fanny won the 800 meter run at the Dutch championship in 1935 before switching to the sprints for the Olympic Games in 1936. The 800 meters was deemed too strenuous for women and was dropped after the 1928 Olympics, but the 200 meter sprint was added.

Koen’s 11.0-second 100-yard dash in Amsterdam in 1938 tied the world record and she went on to win bronze medals at the European Championships in the 100 and 200 meters.

Fanny was projected to be among the medal favorites in the 1940 Olympics scheduled for Helsinki, Finland but the world scene was changing. Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and the Netherlands a year later. The 1940 Olympic Games were cancelled and with World War II raging, there would be no Olympic competition in 1944 either. Fanny was still able to compete during those years and she set records in 1942 and 1943 in the 80- meter hurdles, long jump and high jump. Fanny also married her coach Jan Blankers, a former Olympic track athlete, and was to be forever known as Fanny Blankers-Koen.

As the 1948 Olympics approached, BlankersKoen was nearing 30 years-old, an advanced age for a sprinter. She was a mother of two and in her native Holland there was sentiment in some quarters that she should be at home looking after her family. But Fanny only trained two days a week for two hours, and would bring her children along.

The 1948 Olympics in London were referred to as the Austerity Games. With the world slowly recovering from the war, London was forced to host the Games on a shoestring. Competitors brought their own towels and used London public buses for transportation to events. Medals were awarded in shoeboxes! Food was still scarce in countries rebuilding from the war and many European athletes were forced to train under less than optimal nourishment.

Olympic rules allowed Blankers-Koen to only enter three individual events in London. Fanny won the gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 80-meter hurdles. Before the start of the 200 meters, Fanny suffered a bout of homesickness and had to be talked into staying for the 200 final, which she won handily. Fanny had gone shopping in London for a raincoat and nearly missed the 4 x100 relay final. Without time to warm-up, she received the baton for the anchor leg a good distance behind, but was able to close the gap with a remarkable burst and win the gold for Holland, and secure her fourth gold medal.

The no-frills 1948 Olympic Games were judged a success by a public anxious to get back to some normalcy.

Fanny had become the star of the London Olympics and came home to Holland a national hero. Thousands lined the streets in Amsterdam as Blankers-Koen was driven in a horse-drawn carriage. She was given a bicycle by neighbors “so she didn’t have to run so much!” It was later discovered Fanny had been pregnant during the Games.

Blankers-Koen continued to set records into her thirties, establishing a modern pentathlon mark in 1951 at age 33. The 5-event competition included the shot put, high jump, 200 meter sprint, 80-meter hurdles and long jump. Blankers-Koen entered her final Olympics in Helsinki in 1952 but did not medal. She competed in track a few more years but retired in 1955, leaving behind a long list of impressive statistics: 16 world records in eight different events. Blankers-Koen captured five European titles between 1946 and 1950 and 58 Dutch national championship titles! The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) named Fanny Blankers-Koen the top female athlete of the 20th century.

Fanny Blankers-Koen died January of 2004 in the town of Hoofddorp, south of Amsterdam, at age 85. Referred to as “The Flying Housewife,” Fanny Blankers-Koen helped break down barriers for women in sport and prove that age and motherhood were no hurdles to success.

Image: Fanny Blankers-Koen wins her third gold medal at the 1948 Olympics in London. (allgemeinezeitung.de)