A LEGEND PASSES
WHEN her multiple sclerosis made it too difficult for her to write her name, Betty Cuthbert satisfied the autograph hunters with a thumbprint. She agreed she could have had a rubber stamp made of her signature, or handed out printed cards.
“But it wouldn’t be very personal, not as special,” she said. Being special was one of the things that always seemed to come naturally for Cuthbert, whose death at age 79 was announced yesterday morning.
From the time she won the Olympic 100m title at the age of 18 in Melbourne in 1956, Cuthbert has been one of the most special Australians. She won two other gold medals at those Olympic Games and as a result became known by a name somewhat devalued by overuse. But for her it was perfect. Elizabeth “Betty” Cuthbert was born in Sydney on April 20, 1938, a twin to her sister Marie. But from the time she hit the headlines in 1956, she was the “Golden Girl”.
Cuthbert’s lunge at the line in the 100m at the Melbourne Olympics, her mouth wide open and blonde hair streaming behind her, is perpetuated in bronze outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground, scene of her 1956 track and field glory. It is an image made all the more poignant by her more recent appearances in a wheelchair, the result of the multiple sclerosis diagnosed in 1974. In the days before sport, particularly the Olympics, was cheapened by money, drugs and celebrity cults, Cuthbert represented what it was all supposed to be about. Especially to Australians. To her, it simply came naturally. “It’s funny looking back at everything,” she said. “I was never fanatical about running, never had any heroes or anything. It all just happened.”
A year before the 1956 Games, Cuthbert spent almost all of her savings to buy a ticket to watch fellow Australian Marjorie Jackson run in Melbourne. But in the months before the Games the Sydney teenager broke Jackson’s 200m world record, became a natural selection and then the star of the team.
Cuthbert won the 100m, the 200m and anchored the winning 4x100m relay team, so becoming the first Australian to win three gold medals at one Olympic Games. Four years later she went to Rome as favourite to win again, but an injury led to her elimination early in the 100m, and ultimately, her retirement.
The events of those Games also led to the revelation of her deeply-held Christian beliefs.
“God meant everything to me,” she said later. “From a little girl I believed that God had given me the gift to run and I used it. When I retired in 1960, I thought I had done enough with the gift.”
The retirement lasted less than two years, being revoked before the 1962 Empire Games in Perth, where she helped Australia to a gold medal in the sprint relay. That was enough to inspire an Olympic comeback in Tokyo in 1964 where Cuthbert set her sights on the 400m, which was included for the first time in the women’s program.
She duly won a fourth gold medal, becoming the first athlete in the world to do so in four different events.
Through it all, Cuthbert had been inspired by a Bible verse given to her by her grandmother just before she ran in Melbourne.
The same verse, Isaiah 40:31, which reads, in part, “those who trust in the Lord will find new strength”, was her inspiration after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1969.
“I’ve never been angry. I can honestly say that, I’ve never been angry. I think there is a reason why I have MS and that is to inspire other people who are suffering from the disease,” she said.
“In having MS, I stand on that verse from Isaiah, because I truly believe without doubt that my body will be restored again as it was before.”
MS isn’t the only adversity Cuthbert faced. She became the victim of a cruel conman in the late 1990s who left her virtually penniless, forcing her to sell much of her cherished sporting memorabilia. One of Cuthbert’s last public appearances came at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics where, in her wheelchair, she carried the Olympic flame into the stadium.
Late in her life the woman who set 16 world records and won four Olympic gold medals received official recognition as one of the greatest athletes of all time, one of 10 inaugural inductees into the International Association of Athletics Federations’ Hall of Fame in 2012. Cuthbert was the first Australian added to the list.