Olympic team spirit lacking —Dawn Fraser

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 3

Olympic team spirit lacking —Dawn Fraser

NZPA Townsville Australia may be shut out of the hunt for medals at the Los Angeles Olympics through a lack of team spirit. That is the opinion of the former Olympic swimming star, Dawn Fraser, and she said the fault does not lie with the team members.

“It is the high cost of sending teams away,” she said.

Miss Fraser, who began her streak of gold medal successes by winning the 100 m freestyle at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, remembers one of the keys to her own top performances.

“I was a 19-year-old kid and pretty overawed by all the big-name international stars walking around the Olympic Village,” she said. It was help and advice from experienced athletes like Marjorie Jackson and Shirley Strickland that settled the young swimmer down and pointed her towards success in the pool.

“Nowadays, Australian Olympic teams go away in bits and pieces,” said Miss Fraser.

“Our competitors move into the Olympic Village isolated in their own sport, and often when their part of the competition is over they move straight out again to help keep the costs down,” she said.

Because the Australian team was now “broken up,” the strong support for competitors such as she received as a youngster could be lacking at Los Angeles this year, she said. Miss Fraser has been given the opportunity of helping some of the athletes and swimmers with their problems, as an appointee to Australia’s new Sports Commission being set up by the Federal Minister of Sport, Mr John Brown. “We have got some great young swimmers. Anna McVann and Justin Lemberg are just two who have medal-winning potential,” she said.

“But when you are swimming in the Olympics and you are towing this whole island along behind you, you need all the support and encouragement you can get.”