SWIMMERS DEFY BAN

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30569, 12 October 1964, Page 14

SWIMMERS DEFY BAN

Two In Tears, Two Marched (Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) TOKYO, Oct 11. Australia’s champion swimmer, Miss Dawn Fraser, and a backstroke swimmer, Miss Marlene Dayman, defied Australian officials and took part in the opening of the Olympic Games yesterday. They marched into the main stadium with the Australian team after being smuggled aboard a bus at the Yoyogi Olympic village. But two other swimmers, Miss L. McGill and Miss N. Duncan, who also boarded a bus at the village, were discovered and were led off in tears. The Australian Amateur Swimming Union banned from marching any swimmers who were competing in the first three days of the Olympics. This included Misses Fraser, Dayman, Duncan and McGill. Miss Fraser is to swim tomorrow in the heats of the 100 metres freestyle, the event which she won in Rome and Melbourne and for which she holds the world record. The ruling upset the swimmers, particularly the girls, all of whom wanted to march. Miss Fraser will not be disciplined, while she is a member of this Olympic team, for defying the ban. Twenty-one men and women swimmers were affected by the ban. They were told to spend the time reading or training. The team’s general manager (Mr L. Curnow) said Miss Fraser and Miss Dayman had broken no rule of his. Whatever swimming rule they might have broken was a matter for the Australian Swimming Union, not for him.