Life and Career
Durack was born in Sydney, Australia in 1889.
Durack learned to swim in Sydney's Coogee Baths using breaststroke, the only style for which there was a championship for women at that time. In 1906 she won her first title, and over the next few years, dominated the Australian swimming scene. In the 1910-11 swimming season, Mina Wylie beat Durack in the 100 yards breaststroke and the 100 and 220 yards freestyle at the Australian Swimming Championships at Rose Bay. The two went on to become close friends.
In the late 1910s, she held every women's swimming world record from 100 m to a mile.
Durack and Wylie were initially refused permission to compete in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. The New South Wales Ladies Swimming Association later allowed them to go provided they bore their own expenses. Durack set a new world record in the heats of the 100 m freestyle. She won the final, becoming the first Australian woman to win an Olympic gold medal in a swimming event. Until 1932 (when Clare Dennis won the 200 m backstroke in Los Angeles) she was the only such woman; and until 1956 she and Dennis were the only two such women.
During World War I, the statue of Mary and the infant Jesus on top of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières in Albert, Somme, France, was hit by a shell on January 15, 1915, and slumped to a near-horizontal position. Australian troops nicknamed the leaning statue "Fanny", in honour of Fanny Durack as it resembled the swimmer diving off the blocks.
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