Dawn Fraser grew up in the suburb of Balmain, a dockside industrial suburb in Sydney. She was the youngest of eight children, and suffered from anaemia, asthma and other chest complications. She learnt to swim at the age of five and two years later, Dawn Fraser swam for a professional body. Around 1950, Fraser joined the Drummoyne Women's Amateur Swimming Club, where she caused a commotion by beating the brilliant young swimmer, Lorraine Crapp, in a 55-yard event.
             She left school at 14, but preferred to live it up with late night parties, drinking and cigarettes. Harry Gallagher, a young swim coach, worked on her at every opportunity and finally, when she turned 17, she agreed to start training seriously. This meant moving to Adelaide and boarding with his parents. This was a turning point in her sporting life. Her training in Adelaide cleared up her respiratory trouble and within a few months won her first big race, the 1955 Australian 220- yard freestyle.
             A year later, in February 1956, she again went to Sydney for the Australian championships. Lorraine Crapp was then the early favourite for the Olympics title, but Fraser beat her in the Australian 110-yard event, breaking the longest standing world record, set 20 years before. Later the same week she cracked the world record for the 200m and 220 yards. In the Melbourne Games Fraser was victorious in the 100m.
             In 1960 a few months before the Rome Olympics, Dawn Fraser beat world record holder Ilsa Konrads, in the 440 yards. She went to the Olympics in Rome won the 100m freestyle and two relays.
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