GOLDEN GIRL
GOLDEN girl Betty Cuthbert, who captured a nation’s hearts as she took three gold medals at the Melbourne Olympics and went on to become our first international athletic hall-of-famer, finally lost the race she could never win on Sunday night.
The athletics legend died after a 48-year battle against multiple sclerosis, aged 79.
“Betty was a true inspiration and role model to all Australians,” Sport Australia Hall of Fame chairman John Bertrand said.
“Her feats on the track brought together Australians as one. She loved the country and we loved her.”
Olympic and Commonwealth Games heptathlon gold medallist Glynis NunnCearns, who coaches out of Somerset College in Mudgeeraba, said it was sad to see a champion such as Betty Cuthbert restricted to a wheelchair for so long before she passed away.
Tambourine Village resident Nunn-Cearns, who won gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games after a gold at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games, first met Cuthbert after her MS had taken hold.
“When I first met Betty I looked at her and admired her strength,” Ms Nunn-Cearns said.
“Obviously that was burnt through what she did in sport.
“It was so sad to see someone who had achieved so much in her sport to then be in a wheelchair.
“It wasn’t a pity thing, it was a sadness, if that makes sense. Someone who had done so much didn’t deserve that.
“She was just a nice person and what she did in sport was inspirational.”
To Betty’s twin sister Marie “Midge” Johnston, Elizabeth Cuthbert was the older (by seconds) sibling who came out feet first and who always remembered her twin even as the debilitating disease took its toll.
“We were very close and each time I’d go over (to Cuthbert’s new home near Perth) because she was getting dementia I’d worry she’d forget me, but she remembered me each time,” Mrs Johnston said. “She’d say ‘Midge of course I remember you’ and even though I knew she would forget other times, she would remember me at the time.”
The pair were close growing up in Sydney’s northwest, alongside older siblings John and Jean. Their parents ran a nursery, which Betty left high school to work in when she turned 16.
The family has been offered a state funeral.
SHE WAS JUST A NICE PERSON AND WHAT SHE DID IN SPORT WAS INSPIRATIONAL GLYNIS NUNN-CEARNS