Fraser, the Australian rebel

Dubai - The Australian swimmer made her mark in the 100m freestyle

Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser made her mark in the 100m freestyle, taking gold in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and then in Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964.
In doing so, she became the first woman to defend an Olympic swimming title and the first Olympic swimmer of either sex to win the same event three times.
She is the first of only three swimmers in Olympic history (Krisztina Egerszegi of Hungary and Michael Phelps of the United States being the two others) to have won individual gold medals for the same event at three successive Olympics (100 metres freestyle - 1956, 1960, 1964).
Fraser also won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay in 1956 and earned silver medals in four other events over the Games in which she competed.
From 1956 to 1964 she broke the women's world record for the 100-meter freestyle race nine successive times, and her mark of 58.9 seconds, established in 1964, was unbroken until 1972.
However, her career was also defined by clashes with Australia's swimming authorities. After the Rome Olympics, she was handed a two-year ban after a number of minor offences, including not wearing the team tracksuit to receive her medal.
At Tokyo, she defied team orders by marching in the ceremony, wore an unofficial swimsuit while competing and finally she was caught stealing souvenir flags near the Imperial Palace - crimes which earned her a whopping 10-year ban, prompting her retirement.
Fraser, from a working-class suburb of Sydney, remains one of Australia's most outspoken sports heroes, and recently courted controversy when she told misbehaving tennis stars Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic "to go back to where their parents came from", comments for which she later apologised.
Fraser, the youngest of eight children, was spotted at the early age of 14 by Sydney coach Harry Gallagher, swimming at the local sea baths.
She went on to win eight Olympic medals, including four gold medals, and six Commonwealth Games gold medals. She also held 39 records. The 100 metres freestyle record was hers for 15 years from 1 December 1956 to 8 January 1972.
A movie called 'Dawn!' was made about Fraser's life and career in 1979 and it starred Bronwyn Mackay-Payne as Fraser. Later, in 2003, Fraser was played by Melissa Thomas in the 2003 film 'Swimming Upstream.'