Dawn Fraser: on cheating Russians and my amazing grandson
In the build-up to the Rio Olympics, Dawn Fraser shares an explosive story about cheating Russian athletes and talks candidly about the love of her life. Michael Sheather meets the 78-year-old legend enjoying her sea-change life in Queensland.
IF ANYONE SEEKS an explanation of why Dawn Fraser, perhaps Australia and the world’s greatest Olympic swimmer, is now living her life on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, they only need look at the little boy who is usually by her side. Jackson Fraser, now 12, is Dawn’s grandson and it would be difficult to find a greater or more devoted relationship.
“We love each other,” says Dawn, 78, the three-time Olympic 100m freestyle gold medallist. “That’s the simple answer. Jackson and his mother, Dawn-Lorraine, made the decision to come here to Queensland about eight years ago while I stayed in Sydney. But I found that I was so lonely without them, that I missed them so much, I had to come up and join them. I couldn’t do without them in my life.”
Dawn’s grandson, Jackson Donald Fraser, red-haired, blue-eyed and full of life, was born to Dawn’s daughter, Dawn-Lorraine, in 2003, and as Dawn said at the time, he was “a gift from God”. He was born via IVF using sperm donated by a family friend. And from that moment, the trio became a solid family unit, living together in Dawn’s home in Balmain, the same home where Dawn was born the youngest of eight children in 1937 and raised in a proudly working-class family by her parents Ken and Rose.
In a far-ranging, candid interview, Dawn talks for the first time about how she believes the ghost of her long-dead father has followed her north.
She also speaks about her feelings surrounding the divisions and high expectations in the Australian swim team that, she says, ruined their chances at the London Olympics, as well as how she thinks Russian athletes, recently banned from the Rio de Janeiro Games unless they prove they are drug-free, have always been cheats in international competition.
When Jackson was four and attending a nearby school in Balmain, Dawn-Lorraine says he was subjected to protracted bullying because he didn’t have a father, a situation that eventually led him to develop anxiety and other stress-related illnesses, all of which precipitated Dawn-Lorraine’s decision to move away from Balmain.
“It was shortly after that time when Mum was attacked by the tabloid press for having a disabled parking sticker,” recalls Dawn-Lorraine. “The press was camped outside our house and we had to take Jackson to and from school through a scrum of photographers and reporters. It was awful and on top of the bullying at school, it really got to Jackson. I just said, ‘That’s it, I’m going. I’ve had enough of Sydney’.”
Yet the decision left Dawn in a dilemma. “At the time, I was still a director at the NRMA in Sydney, so I had work commitments that kept me in the city. As much as I wanted to
go with them, I just couldn’t because I thought the constant travel would have been too much for me,” she says. “So I stayed at my house in Balmain while Dawn-Lorraine and Jackson went to make a new life on the Sunshine Coast.”
Dawn-Lorraine and Jackson moved into a house that Dawn-Lorraine had purchased in Noosa just after Jackson was born. “I thought it would just be a rental,” she says. “It’s on the water. It’s nice. Without thinking about it, I said, ‘That’s it, we’re moving’, and Jackson looked up at me and said, ‘Mum, we’ll give it 12 months …’, and I said, ‘All right, we’ll give it 12 months …’”
Yet the separation proved too much for Dawn. “I came up to see him on his fifth birthday and it was all I could do to get back on the plane,” she says. “And when I came back to Sydney, they gave me a surprise edition of This Is Your Life. They presented me with a photograph of me when I was three years old. It was picture of me and Mum and my grandmother. It was the first time I’d ever seen a photograph of my grandmother and I’d always said
I’d never met them [my grandparents]. I certainly couldn’t remember them because they died when I was young. So, I grew up without grandparents in my life and I decided then that I wasn’t going to let Jackson grow up without me in his life. And I missed them terribly. I was alone in the house and I felt there was nothing left for me in Balmain.
“It wasn’t the same suburb as when I was growing up – then, it was workingclass, but most of those people had moved and been replaced by lawyers and bankers, and young professionals with no children. It was a different place and, being alone all the time, I was getting morbid.”
So, in 2009, and while still a NRMA director, Dawn went north to Noosa and moved in with Dawn-Lorraine and Jackson. “I was travelling back to Sydney every few weeks and that was good because Dawn-Lorraine and I have always managed to argue about things,” says Dawn, with a laugh. “But I got to be with Jackson, too, and that meant everything to me and I think he liked it, too.”
Jackson, says Dawn-Lorraine, is devoted to his grandmother. “He loves her so much. It’s beautiful to watch. He looks out for her all the time – if she needs a hand on the stairs, he’s always there to lend his arm. He jumps straight up and is always asking if she’s okay or needs help. He’s a good person.”
Jackson has well and truly settled into his new life in Queensland. He has several solid friends and spends his time riding to and from school with his grandmother. “I take him to school on my bike,” says Dawn. “He rides his and I ride mine. It’s my daily exercise and keeps me fit.”
Dawn may be fit for her age – and she does look fabulous – but she may not be as resilient as she once was. During the past few weeks, she has been recovering from surgery to correct a long-standing and painful shoulder injury. Several years ago, she slipped while trying to load a jet ski on to a trailer by herself and strained her shoulder joint. A year ago, she exacerbated that injury when a fellow plane passenger knocked her arm with a bag and separated her bicep muscle from her arm bone.
Dawn still owns the family home in Balmain. “I’d never sell it,” she says. “One day, it will belong to Jackson. So that’s up to him. It’s my family home. I always promised Mum and Dad that I’d buy it for them. Unfortunately, they both passed away before I was able to buy it, but at least it’s in my name now.”
Dawn’s father, Ken, a shipwright, died from leukemia after a 14-year illness in 1961. During much of that time, he was confined to a bed on the first floor of the family home. Dawn says that after he died, she often felt his presence there.
“This is not something that I talk about very much. I was very sick with glandular fever when I was younger and I was sleeping in my dad’s room,” says Dawn, whose mother, Rose, died after a car accident in 1964 when Dawn was at the wheel. “It has two French doors opening on to the balcony and I had my bedhead up this end, looking down, and outside on the landing I had a nice, beautiful wardrobe. I heard this voice. I was really very sick, I was home by myself. I looked in and my father was like that on the wardrobe. He said, ‘Get out of bed, Dawny’. I got out of bed straight away.”
Another time, not long before Jackson was born, Dawn was downstairs and when she glanced up, she saw her father at the head of the stairs. “DawnLorraine was with me and I looked up and said, ‘Pop’s here’,” recalls Dawn.
Even stranger, Dawn believes that her father’s spirit has followed her to Noosa. “I was sitting in the lounge room a couple of months ago and I felt this shadow go past me. I wasn’t sure at first, but then when I looked up, I knew it was my father. He was coming out of the office and into the hallway. Strange. Very strange. It makes me feel like I’m getting a bit silly in my old age.”
Yet Dawn’s mind is still sharp and perceptive on sporting matters. She is a fierce opponent of drugs in sport and the recent ban by the International Olympic Committee on Russian athletes competing at the Games in
Rio has her full support.
“It doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Dawn says. “The Russians have always been cheats. In fact, all those Eastern Bloc countries, the East Germans, the Russians, they were all using drugs, steroids and all sorts of things. I think the only reason so few were caught during my time as a competitor is because we didn’t have the tests in those days. If we had the same tests then as now, I’m sure a lot more would have been banned.
“If they’ve been using drugs, then they should be banned – get them out and keep them out. I don’t mind athletes from Russia competing if they are clean. That’s only fair. But anyone caught using drugs should be gone and gone for good. What good is competition if some people have a chemical advantage? That’s not right.”
Dawn recounts an incident from Rome in 1960. She and other female swimmers went to an athlete’s spa in the Olympic village during the Games. As they entered a sauna, they realised it was already occupied by Russian sisters Tamara and Irina Press, the former a discus and shot-put thrower, the latter a hurdler and pentathlete.
“We went to go into the spa and we saw they had these things [appendages] up there like that, hanging out,” recalls Dawn. “It took us a second or two to realise that they couldn’t be sisters. We got out of there quick smart.”
Between them, the Press sisters set 26 world records between 1959 and 1966. In later years, they were accused of being men (or hermaphrodites) or of being injected with male hormones. Both retired before gender verification became mandatory for all Olympic athletes.
As for Australia’s chances in the pool at Rio, Dawn is quietly confident. She says that the culture among the Australian swimmers at the London Games in 2012 contributed to a poor performance, but the Australian Olympic Committee and Swimming Australia have both worked hard to change that, bringing back the united, supportive team spirit that once made Australia a dominant force in the pool.
“What happened in London was disgraceful,” says Dawn, “absolutely disgraceful. I was there with Jackson as my guest and even he saw it. He kept saying, ‘What’s wrong with the Australian swimmers?’ He wasn’t the only one. Just a few seats away was Ryan Lochte, the American swimmer and 11-time Olympic medallist. He came over and said, ‘What’s going on, Dawn? What happened to the Australians?’ I said, ‘I think they are all up themselves’.
“You know what really shocked me was when I saw the photograph of James Magnussen in front of the London Bridge, saying, ‘I am the world champion’. You might have been the world champion, mate, but you aren’t an Olympic champion. Big difference. But it wasn’t just him. I won’t say he spoiled it, but that sort of situation, where ego got in the way, spoiled it for a lot of our swimmers.”
Now, the team is focused and working together, says Dawn, who is a mentor for many of the swimmers, all of which promises an improved performance in the pool in Rio.
“It’s very exciting,” says Dawn. “We have 19 debutants on the team. They know no pain. They’ll get in there and they’ll surprise. There’ll be names where people will say, ‘Where did this kid come from?’ because they’re debutants.
“I was in Adelaide for the trials earlier this year. I saw a swim that I have never, ever seen in my life, and I don’t think I will ever see it again. It was incredible. We had five backstrokers under the Olympic qualifying time for 100 metres. Never have I seen it in any other country in the world. We had five of them. We could only pick two.
“I tell you what, the Campbell sisters [Cate and Bronte], Cameron McEvoy, Mack Horton, Jake Packard – I love them as swimmers. I love their mental capacity to go and talk behind, then once they’re called up to the blocks, they wave to the crowd and then they go. You can see they’re focusing on what they’ve got to do.”
Will Dawn be in Rio to watch them when the Games start on August 5? Unfortunately, no. At 78, she is going to sit this one out.
“I will sit on the lounge and watch the Games with Jackson,” she says. “And that’s one of the reasons I am so against drugs in sport. If we don’t stand up and say, ‘No, this is wrong’, then what are we saying to our children and their children, to kids like Jackson – that using drugs is okay? No thanks, that’s not right. That’s just not right.”