- Shirley Strickland
Shirley Barbara Strickland (18 July 1925 – 11 February 2004) later Shirley Strickland de la Hunty, was an Australian athlete. She won more Olympic medals than any other Australian in running sports.
Father
Her father,
Dave Strickland , played one senior game ofAustralian rules football with Melbourne VFL team St Kilda in 1900. [http://stats.rleague.com/afl/stats/players/D/Dave_Strickland.html]He also won the 1900, 130-yard
Stawell Gift in 12 seconds, off a handicap of 10 yards.Education
Strickland, a native of
Perth, Western Australia , graduated from theUniversity of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Science in 1945 and, in 1946, won honours with physics.Athlete
Only the following year she took up running seriously, but with great success. She won the national title in the 80 m hurdles in 1948 and was part of the Australian delegation for the
1948 Summer Olympics in London. There, Strickland finished third in both the 100 m and 80 m hurdles and won a silver medal in the 4x100 m relay.After winning three gold medals in the 1950
British Empire Games she won her first Olympic title at the 1952 Games inHelsinki . She earned her gold medal in the 80 m hurdles, blitzing the field inworld record time (10.9 s). A baton mix-up cost her a second gold in the 4x100 m relay. In the 100 m she again won the bronze.She set a new world record of 11.3 s for the 100 m in Poland in 1955, and in the 1956 Olympics she won gold again in the 80 m hurdles and with the Australian 4x100 m relay team.
Administrator
She maintained her Olympic involvement, in athlete administration, with the Australian teams during the 1968 and 1976 Olympics in Mexico City and
Montreal .Political life
She was also active in politics, standing several times without success as a candidate for the
Australian Democrats and being a spokesperson for a number of environmental groups.Torch-bearer
She was one of the bearers of the
Olympic Torch at the opening ceremony of the2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney,New South Wales . She carried the Olympic Torch within the stadium itself, as one of the runners for the final segment on the running track, before the lighting of theOlympic Flame .Memorabilia
In 2001 Shirley attracted media attention by auctioning all of her sporting memorabilia including her Olympic Gold medals. She was criticised by some for that but asserted she had a right to do so and the income generated would help pay for her grandchildren's education and allow a sizeable donation to assist in securing old-growth forests from use by developers. Her memorabilia was eventually acquired, for the MCG Museum in Melbourne, by a group of anonymous businessmen who shared Shirley's wish that the memorabilia would stay in Australia.
Death
Her body was found on 16 February 2004 on her kitchen floor, but there was ample evidence to suggest she had died five days earlier on the evening of 11 February. There was no full autopsy and the coroner said the cause of death was "unascertainable".
Her family believed it was caused by a stroke or a heart attack brought on by stress. In 2005 a request by some members of her family to the West Australian coroner to hold an inquest was denied.
External links
* [http://www.geocities.com/geetee/bios/shirl.html Extensive biography and statistics]
* [http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/strickland/bio.html/ Official Australian Biography- Shirley Strickland]Other Sources
* "Death of a Golden Girl" article, Jane Cadzow, "Sydney Morning Herald" "Good Weekend" magazine, 21 January 2006
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