FANNY BLANKERS-KOEN SR. AND JR.
In the long history of the Olympic Games only four competitors have won four gold track medals in a single year. Alvin Kraenzlein, Paavo Nurmi and Jesse Owens are the men, the Dutch mother of the pig-tailed youngster shown above is the only woman. As any track buff whose interest goes back a decade or so will readily recall, Fanny Blankers-Koen, "the flying housewife," mother of two children, won gold medals in the 80-meter hurdles, the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the 400-meter relay.
Now there is another Fanny on the cinder track, Fanny's 12-year-old daughter, a shy young lady with a mind of her own. "They told me I was too young but, really, that isn't so at all." She kept after mother and father until they gave in. Young Fanny, who is on the track every day, is dead serious about becoming as good as her mother, admonishes her still dubious parents with a Dutch copybook maxim: "Learn young; do old."
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