This
commemorative
silver coin is one piece from a set of six, which were issued to celebrate the Olympic sporting achievements of some
of Australia's best athletes. The series is called Olympic Heritage and was released in celebration of Australia's century
long participation in the Olympic games. The six coins were released in pairs over three years from 1994-1996. This coin
pays tribute to Sarah Durack and was released in 1994 and paired with Edwin Flack. These two athletes were Australia's first
Gold medal winners. In 1995 Australia's living legends Dawn Fraser and Murray Rose were commemorated and in 1996 it was the
turn of Shirley Strickland and Betty Cuthbert who are considered Australia's greatest Olympic medal winners. The coins were
struck into silver with a fantastic frosted reverse finish. This was the first set of silver coins issued by the Royal Australian
Mint and the series is a popular one.
The reverse of this coin was designed by Horst Hanhe and depicts Sarah
Durack performing her Gold Medal winning sport, swimming. She is posed reaching out the water with a medal beneath and the
legend SARAH DURACK beneath that. On the outer circle the legends read AUSTRALIA'S 1st GOLD MEDALISTS on the top and the
denomination 10 DOLLARS is bellow. The obverse features the Raphael Maklouf
portrait of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and the
legend
running around the outer circle reads ELIZABETH II AUSTRALIA 1994. The first pair that was released from the set was
issued in a plush green presentation box with space to house the additional four coins to complete the set. This also included
a booklet entitled AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC ROLL OF HONOUR which contains a complete list of the Australian Olympic medallists
from the year 1896 until the year the first coins of the series was issued, 1994. A Certificate of Authenticity was also
included and contained a short biography of each of the athletes featured in the series.
Sarah Durack (1889-1956), known affectionately as Fanny was born in Sydney to Irish parents. She learnt to swim at the
swimming baths in Coogee, where she trained in breast stroke and Australian crawl.
(King, H, 1981)
She won her first state title was she was still a school girl and her obvious talent led to her being accepted into the
New South wales Ladies Amateur Swimming Club. At that time there was a rule stating that women could not swim or appear in
competitions when men were present. This rule was abolished in order to allow Durack to take part in the 1912 Olympic Games
in Stockholm, which satisfied thepublic'sdemands to see her compete. During the heats atStockholmshe broke the world record
for the 100 metres freestyle, which she swam in 1 minute 19.8 seconds. She went on to win the gold medal for the same race.
Over her career she would go on to break a total of 12 swimming world records. Unfortunately a week before she was due to
leave for the 1920 Olympics she suffered from an appendectomy. She officially retired from swimming in 1921 and began coaching
children.
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