Dawn Fraser was born in Balmain, Sydney in 1937. To most, being born with asthma would have been an almost insurmountable hurdle, but to Dawn it was a way of participating in sport by need rather than want initially and so she took up swimming at an early age. At a very early age Dawn was spotted by the well known swimming coach Harry Gallagher who commenced training her for nothing and when Gallagher moved to Adelaide, Fraser followed him and that was the beginning of a very special swimming career. After perfecting Dawn�s style, Fraser qualified for the Melbourne Olympic Games and she went on to win the 100 metres freestyle. After winning 2 Gold Medals at the Cardiff Commonwealth Games in 1958, at the age of 23 she went on to represent Australia at the Rome Olympics and again one the 100 metres freestyle. In less than two years, Dawn Fraser went on to become the first woman to swim the 100 metres under one minute and almost gave up swimming on the death of her mother just prior to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics but went on to swim again and won a third time and in doing so became the first athlete to win the same event at three consecutive Olympic Games.

In 1988, Dawn entered politics as the Local Member for her beloved Balmain where she still resides to this day. Dawn Fraser is a truly great Australian.