by Phil Jarratt
Kellerman made two more unsuccessful attempts on the English Channel before retiring from competitive swimming in favour of more lucrative opportunities in vaudeville in the United States. She performed her aquatic act in Chicago and Boston and ultimately in New York where she was paid a staggering 1250 dollars a week as the ‘Australian Mermaid’.
Although she would go onto worldwide fame with a Hollywood film career, Kellerman first tasted international notoriety when she was arrested for indecent exposure at a Boston beach in 1907. The court case, in which she ably defended herself, drew global attention to the absurdity of what women had to wear when they swam, thanks to the influence of the puritans. Kellerman rightly argued that the morality-based enforcement of covering up was both dangerous and a hindrance to swimming performance that held all women back in competition. The case against her was dismissed and authorities in the United States and Europe began to look again at their swimwear regulations. In Australia, while there was less immediate reaction, the country’s fastest young female swimmer was certainly paying attention.
Annette Kellerman postcard. Photo from the Mina Wylie Collection, Mitchell Library.
When Kellerman won the NSW 100-yards championship in 1902, an eleven-year-old publican’s daughter named Sarah Frances Durack finished dead last in the final. Five years later that same girl, now known as ‘Fanny’, was a star in the making. Durack did her early training at Mrs Page’s Coogee Baths, a women’s facility, but after winning the 1904 NSW Ladies’ 100-yards championships, she and her close friend, Wilhelmina ‘Mina’ Wylie, trained with the top men in Sydney Harbour and at Wylies Baths at Coogee, owned by Mina’s father, Henry. Despite the watchful presence of Mina’s father, they soon ran into opposition from Sydney’s leading first-generation feminists, who were a curious mix of puritanism and progressive thinking.
Chief among them was Rose Scott, president of the NSW Ladies’ Amateur Swimming Association, an old-fashioned suffragette who was recognised as one of Australia’s most effective campaigners for women’s rights. A spinster who never participated in any sport, she was firmly against mixed bathing and for full-length swimming costumes with skirts. Rose Scott saw terrible sexual dangers lurking everywhere, but nowhere more so than at the swimming baths. It was Scott who took the decision to ban all female competition in the presence of men, even fathers and brothers, explaining: ‘A girl who is in the habit of exposing herself at public swimming carnivals is likely to have her modesty hopelessly blighted.’
Thanks to celebrity campaigners such as Annette Kellerman, attitudes to women’s swimming were changing at last, and in the run-up to the 1912 Games, de Coubertin lost the fight to keep female swimmers out of the Olympics. In February 1912 Fanny Durack competed in the Australasian titles at Rushcutters Bay, where she set unofficial world records in the 100- and 220-yards-freestyle championships, with Mina Wylie a close second in both events. The following month at the Coogee Aquarium, she set new world records in the 150-yards events. Based on performance she should have been the first female selected for the Olympic swim team, but when the Australasian team was announced there were no women in it, the selectors citing cost issues. However, the selectors were careful not to disagree with Rose Scott’s policy of approving only completely gender-segregated events, and not one male sporting body came out in support of Durack, although Cecil Healy, writing in The Referee, argued that Durack and Mina Wylie could be ‘depended upon to assist materially in causing the world to talk a good deal of a country which can produce such great athletes—particularly swimmers of both sexes’.
Despite the lack of support from the conservative male sporting bodies, Rose Scott and the puritan feminists were now in the minority, a fact borne out when even the staid Telegraph mocked her: ‘Miss Durack would be under the gaze of a large gathering of men. How dreadful!’ When a number of female competitors defected from the Association to join the new and desegregated League of Swimmers, the prohibition’s days were numbered.
Hugh McIntosh, urged on by his wife, May, opened a public fund to pay Durack’s travel expenses to Stockholm and started accepting donations just as the Olympic selection committee began to receive sacks full of abusive letters from around the country. Finally, Scott’s own board turned against her and voted to send Durack to Stockholm, a reversal that prompted the pioneer feminist’s immediate resignation, protesting as she vacated the presidency: ‘We cannot have too much modesty, refinement and delicacy in relations between men and women. There is too much boldness and rudeness now and I am afraid that this new decision will have a very vulgar effect on girls.’ To rub salt in Scott’s wound, the NSW Association made a last-minute decision to also send Mina Wylie, and Australia’s first two female Olympic swimmers set sail for Stockholm via London on the FMS Armand-Behic on 15 April, accompanied by two chaperones in the form of Mina Wylie’s father, Henry, and Durack’s elder sister, Mary.
As friends and family waved farewell from the dock, news was arriving by cable of the sinking of the luxury liner, Titanic, somewhere off the Canadian coast, with suspected massive loss of life.
Cecil Healy and the majority of the Australasian team set sail for Stockholm via London, on the P & O liner, RMS Osterley, on 27 April, twelve days after the departure of the female swimmers. This left more than a month after arrival to acclimatise to Stockholm, but in Healy’s view, this was barely enough. At his last Olympics, in 1906, he had arrived in Athens just a matter of days before his first heat, and despite eventually winning bronze in the 100-metres freestyle, considered himself lucky to qualify, having swum his early heats in totally unfamiliar conditions.
On arrival the Australian swimmers found that their extended preparation time would not be wasted. The swimming stadium was a temporary baths built next to the Stockholm Rowing Club in an inlet of Stockholm Harbour known as Djurgårdsbrunnsviken, or the Bay of Sweden. The water was cold and murky, the result of excavation to make the baths uniformly deep.
Despite this, the women’s team seemed to have settled in well in a pension in nearby Skeppargatan. ‘The girls are as happy as pigs in a poke,’ matter-of-fact Henry Wylie told Healy over a welcome drink in a tiny harbourfront bar adjacent to the baths. ‘The rooms are pretty basic but no-one’s complainin’. In fact, Mina’s still pinchin’ herself, can’t believe this is happening. And Fanny … well, you know Fanny. The girl’s a bloody marvel. She was swimming good times a day after we arrived. It’ll take a train to stop her.’
Indeed, Healy did know Fanny, but not as well as he’d like to. She was a superwoman, of course—Tom Durack had dedicated a room at their pub in Leichhardt to housing her medals and trophies, more than 150 of them, not just for swimming and diving, but tennis, calisthenics, roller skating and dancing, too—but there was also a sweet and soft side to her, a vulnerability that disappeared the moment she entered the water. And little Mina, the understudy and happy to be so, always pushing her best friend to better times, never besting her, she, too, was a special girl. These lasses were going to show the world what Australian womanhood was all about, Healy knew that in his bones.
Chapter 6
Stockholm
The Australasian team at the Stockholm Olympics, 1912. Photo courtesy National Library of Australia.
The 164 members of the US Olympic team—until then the biggest national team ever sent to the Olympics—sailed from New York on Friday 14 June 1912 on the chartered Red Star liner SS Finland, bound for Antwerp and then Stockholm. The US Olympic committee had chartered the entire ship so that they could convert areas into training facilities for the two-week voyage, then sold the ten excess berths to Olympic tourists—many of them former Olympians—to help cover costs. They would save further money by using the docked ship as their hotel throughout the Games.
The ship’s massive dining room was divided in two so that the athletes could avoid ‘promiscuous indulgence’ in the kind of food that normal voyagers enjoyed. A c
ork track—100 yards long and wide enough for two men running abreast—was installed on the top deck for the sprinters. Long-distance runners used it for their starts, but trained for distance by running laps around the deck, ducking and weaving past passengers. The nine swimmers, supervised by Otto Wahle of the New York Athletic Club, trained in a canvas tank—15 feet long and 5 feet wide—on the main deck. A belt suspended from an overhead rope held them in the middle of the tank while they stroked and kicked.
In the weeks leading up to the departure, Duke Kahanamoku had trained hard under George Kistler, head swimming coach at the University of Pennsylvania, and he felt that the hard work of his preparation had been done. The canvas tank didn’t really appeal, but it was a novelty and he climbed in for a few sessions and to pose for photographs, writing to his father: ‘Have been swimming in a little tank (aboard). Some travelling, Daddy!’ He didn’t mention the fact that during each training session the tiny tank was surrounded by paying passengers and journalists eager to take a close-up look at the stroke employed by the swimming world’s latest sensation.
Despite feeling like a goldfish in a bowl when he trained, Duke enjoyed the camaraderie and the social side of the voyage, telling Halapu in a postcard: ‘Sang Aloha Oe for Colonel Thompson (a millionaire) last night on board. He appreciated it very much and shook hands with us. The boys also appreciated my singing.’ Colonel Robert Thompson, president of the US Olympic Committee, was in fact a multimillionaire copper baron who on arrival joined his own luxury yacht, Katrina, in Stockholm Harbour, where he hosted nightly cocktails and dinners for Olympic dignitaries.
The Finland arrived at Antwerp on the morning of 24 June after a ten-day voyage over smooth seas. While the ship took on stores, the athletes completed their training at a local athletics club (the swimmers revelling in the luxury of a full-sized tank) and had a sightseeing tour of the city. Four days later they were in Stockholm Harbour.
Duke wasted little time getting back into training. The ship docked in the morning and by mid-afternoon he and his relay team partners, Perry McGillivray, Ken Huszagh and Harry Hebner, were going through their paces at the swimming stadium.
One of the first tasks for the Stockholm Swimming Committee had been the drafting of a plan for a swimming stadium since it was clear that none of the existing swimming baths of the city could be used, the largest measuring 33 ⅓ metres in length, while the Olympic rules stipulated a minimum length of 100 metres for races above 500 metres. The committee finally fixed on the waters of Djurgårdsbrunnsviken, which offered natural facilities for the building of stands along the shores, the erection of the diving platforms, and for the arrangement of the swimming course. In addition, the waters offered protection against currents, also required by the rules. The far end and one side were bounded by the land, and the opposite end by a steamboat pier, while, towards the channel, the course was enclosed by a line of pontoons. ‘The water,’ the Official Report of the Games noted, ‘was not quite so clear as that of the Baltic out at Saltsjöbaden, but it was good enough.’ The water was also cold, but it was not as cold as Pittsburgh, and in layout the stadium almost reminded Duke of Alakea Slip.
At one point Duke slapped the timber wall at the end of another lap and hoisted himself onto the decking for a breather. Immediately in front of him a group of men in team blazers stood watching his training session. Duke smiled and waved in their general direction. There was an insignia on the pocket of their blazers but Duke couldn’t make it out. One man, a stout fellow of average height with thinning reddish hair and freckles, stepped forward and offered his hand. ‘Hello, I’m Cecil Healy, from Australia.’
Healy later wrote of this first encounter:
The first thought that occurred to me, after I caught sight of him, was that he was not as pleasant-featured a man as Alick Wickham, nor was there anything prepossessing about his physique. He was tall and somewhat lanky in build. No sooner had he entered the water, however, than we were spellbound with admiration of the fish-like rapidity with which he cleaved the element. He worked his feet—which we had not failed to observe were unusually large—after the style of propellers. The disturbance made by his leg movement increased the likeness.
Duke shook Healy’s hand and introduced himself. Soon he was deep in conversation about the crawl and the two-beat kick with the whole group. Duke was without guile. He knew Healy, Longworth and some of the others would be swimming against him in the 100, but this was what swimmers did. They shared and compared, and then when the time came, they shut out everyone else and focused only on displacing water faster than the others. And he liked the Aussies immediately. They were like Hawaiians—casual and down to earth. The feeling was reciprocated. Healy wrote:
On closer acquaintance we found the Duke, as we soon began to term him, a very friendly man. He was particularly obliging in the matter of giving exhibitions for our special edification or illustrating any feature of his stroke. He speaks English well, with American mannerisms of a mild description … Although he was the cynosure of all eyes, and was attracting far more attention than any of the great exponents who were displaying their prowess there, his notoriety never had the slightest effect on the Duke’s deportment, his demeanour being invariably modest and unconcerned.
Duke found himself particularly drawn to Healy, who seemed a natural leader, and to big Harold Hardwick who, like Healy, was a surfer as well as a swimmer, but had also represented New South Wales at rugby and was an accomplished boxer. He had hoped to represent Australasia in both swimming and boxing at Stockholm until the Swedish Olympic Committee banned boxing. As a consolation, Hardwick frequently sparred with Duke, who was quite handy with the gloves, in the training area on the top deck of the Finland in the days leading up to the Games.
Although the Americans trained hard during the week before the official opening, Duke found time each day to explore the old city streets behind the port, sometimes in the company of his teammates, other times alone. The weather had been superb since their arrival, and although it had seemed somewhat alien to him when they arrived, Duke began to enjoy the small, pleasant city.
He was sitting alone in a small cafe on Skeppargatan one day, enjoying coffee and cake, when the doors burst open and three laughing girls made their way to an adjacent table. He knew enough about the accent by now to detect immediately that they were Australian, and on second glance he realised he had noticed them before, chatting to Healy and the other Australians at the swimming stadium after the women’s training sessions. He smiled broadly as they sat down and his eyes were met by a sweet-faced girl with long, flowing hair, the smallest of the trio but beautifully full-figured nonetheless.
When they had ordered sodas, the girl leaned back in her chair and addressed Duke: ‘Excuse my impertinence, sir, but aren’t you Duke Kahanamoku?’
‘I am, and so is my father, ma’am, so why don’t you just call me Paoa.’
‘So pleased to meet you, Paoa, and I’m Wilhelmina Wylie, but my friends call me Mina.’ She held out her hand and he took it, standing to be polite as she introduced her companions, Fanny Durack and her sister and chaperone, Mary.
Of course Duke knew well enough who they were by name. Fanny Durack’s sprint times had caused a sensation around the swimming world, and Mina Wylie was never far behind her, a world-class swimmer in her own right. But over and above their athletic abilities, the Americans knew about these girls because they had fought for their inclusion in the Games and won, whereas the American girls had fought for inclusion and lost, Colonel Thompson himself leading the opposition.
Duke pulled his chair around and joined their circle. The Duracks were cheerful and funny enough, and he enjoyed listening to the all-girl banter, but whenever she spoke, his eyes were drawn to Mina, and her eyes smiled back at him. Duke was captivated, and when they left the cafe together and parted ways on the street, he said to her: ‘I very much enjoyed your company, Miss Wylie. I sure hope
we get to spend some more time together.’
Mina held out her hand and squeezed Duke’s huge mitt. ‘I hope so, too.’
Mina Wylie, c. 1911. Photo from the Mina Wylie Collection, Mitchell Library.
Although Saturday 6 July 1912 dawned cool and overcast in Stockholm, by mid-morning the cloud cover had burned off and the 2500 athletes representing 28 countries marched into the packed Olympic Stadium in warm sunshine. Team USA, resplendent in white slacks and blue blazers, their boaters held against their chests, received a huge round of applause as the first group to enter the arena, bettered only a few minutes later when the Finnish team, which featured a big and beautiful female contingent wearing rather fetching grey tunics, nearly brought the house down. By contrast, the small Australasian team was received with polite applause, followed shortly after by the arrival of the Swedes, at which point some 25,000 people rose to their feet and roared their approval.
Stockholm opening ceremony, 1912. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
When silence had returned, King Gustav V advanced to the front of the Royal Box and in clear, accented French, English and Swedish, declared the Fifth Olympiad solemnly open. As the king retired to his seat, trumpeters standing on the battlements of the towers of the stadium, clad in ancient costumes, blew several long blasts. Then, as the last echo of the bugles died away, Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, chairman of the Swedish Olympic Committee, lifted his hat and called for three cheers as the athletes resumed their march, each squad saluting as it passed the king.