Sandra Morgan - 1956 Summer Olympics

1956 Summer Olympics

See also: Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics

Arriving in Melbourne for the Olympics, Morgan was not assured of a place in the final relay quartet. Fraser and Crapp were rested in the heats on 4 December while the remaining four swimmers qualified the team. Morgan swam the second leg in 1 min 5.4 s, the fastest of the Australians, securing her position in the final four along with Leech. Australia qualified quickest for the final, winning the second heat by 3.1 s. They were 1.8 and 2.3 s faster than South Africa and the United States respectively, both of which swam in the first heat.

The selection of Leech and Morgan for the 6 December final generated controversy, as they were the two youngest swimmers in the squad and lacked experience at open level competition. Both had competed only once at senior Australian level; Morgan had twice false started at the 1956 Australian Championships, while Leech had been too ill to compete. Australia was the favourite for the relay, having swept the medals in the individual 100 m event; Fraser, Crapp and Leech finished first, second and third. The favouritism was even more marked because Fraser and Crapp were three seconds faster than everyone else in the world.

The Australian team made a poor start in the final after Fraser almost stopped during the first leg, believing that a false start had occurred after mistakenly hearing a second gunshot. She finished her leg in 1 min 4.0 s, almost two seconds slower than her personal best, but enough for a 2.3 s over the United States' Sylvia Ruuska. Swimming the second leg, Leech maintained the lead in the first 50 m but faded in the second half and finished with a split of 1 min 5.1 s; the Australian lead was thus cut to 0.9 s. Morgan dived in for the third leg and was then overhauled and passed by American Nancy Simons. With 25 m left, Morgan took her head out of the water—a fundamental error—and seeing the American a bodylength in front, responded with a surge to regain a 0.7 s lead heading into the final changeover. Crapp then extended the margin to 2.2 s to secure an Australian victory in a world record time of 4 m 17.1 s. The victory was the first time that Australia had swept the 100 m freestyle relay and individual events for both men and women. The only other time that this has been achieved was by the Americans in 1920 in Antwerp. The win would be Australia's only triumph in a female swimming relay at the Olympics until the 2004 games in Athens. The victory made Morgan Australia's youngest ever gold medallist; this record still stands.

Morgan's individual event was the 400 m freestyle. She reduced her personal best by 2.3 s in recording a time of 5 min 7.8 s in the heats, just 0.2 s behind Marley Shriver of the United States, who set a new Olympic record. The mark was surpassed in later heats by Fraser and Crapp, but Morgan nevertheless qualified fourth fastest for the final, almost seven seconds faster than the cutoff. The final was held the day after the relay final. Morgan was unable to repeat her heat performance, finishing sixth in a time of 5 min 14.3 s, far outside her personal best. Had she repeated her heat swim, she would have placed fourth, just 0.7 s from the bronze medal. Nevertheless, she noted that "I was so happy that I had made the final in an individual event in the Olympic Games, for this was my first appearance in a senior competition".

Upon her return to the City of Bankstown, Morgan was honoured with a civic reception and presented with a gold watch and life membership of the Bankstown Pool. However, her stay at the Olympic Village had given rise to a new problem. She enjoyed the food so much that she had gained 9.5 kilograms (21 lb) in weight, and now stood at 170 centimetres (5 ft 7 in) and weighed 76.2 kilograms (168 lb). This heralded the start of a continual weight problem.