Sporting legend Dawn Fraser tells Editor at Large Louise Evans how she’s helping Australia’s new 100m record holder follow in the footsteps of Olympic sprint Queen Raelene Boyle
Dawn Fraser cried when her teenage charge broke the 100m national athletics record to become the fastest Australian woman.
Fraser, 86, has been mentoring Torrie Lewis for the last six months and wasn’t surprised when the 19-year-old ran 11.10s at the ACT Championships on January 27, 2024 to set a new national mark.
“I had tears in my eyes when she broke the record,” said the four-time Olympic swim champion. “She’s a beautiful, well-mannered young lady and she’s been approaching her races very well. I can see her going a long way if she wants to.
“I’ve been telling her to enjoy what she’s doing and not to stress out about racing. Don’t worry about the competition. Your competition is your lane – no one else. Don’t get upset if you lose or do a bad time. Just have fun and run.”
Fraser and Lewis are an odd couple but they’re a good match.
Fraser was 19, the same age as Lewis, when she went to her first Olympics – the 1956 Melbourne Games where she won two gold medals in the 100m freestyle and 100m relay.
Although they’re separated by almost seven decades, they share a mutual admiration and respect and a love of speed and competing.
Lewis requested Fraser as her mentor when she was awarded a Sport Australia Hall of Fame scholarship and she’s reveling in the ad hoc sessions with the national sporting legend.
“Dawn now lives in Noose and I’m in Brisbane, I call her up and say ‘Hi I’m in Noosa’ and we have lunch. Plus we call and text,” Lewis said.
“She’s got all the answers. Since I broke the national record it’s been a bit nerve wracking to be the centre of attention. But as soon as that gun goes I’m not thinking about anything except getting to the finish line as fast as I can.
”Dawn knows how to handle the stress, the extra pressure. She’s gone through all of that – she’s a well of knowledge.”
The race is now on for Lewis to qualify for the Paris Olympics and become one of the fastest 56 women from around the world (maximum three from each country) who’ll compete in the 100m at the Games, which start in five months.
Australia hasn’t had a sprinter in an Olympic 100m final since Raelene Boyle chased East Germany’s Renate Stecher down the 100m and 200m straights at the 1972 Munich Olympics to win dual silver medals.
East German secret service files later revealed many East German athletes including Stecher were involved with a state-sponsored drug program.
The Paris Olympic 100m qualifying entry standard is 11.07s and Lewis will need to run under 11s to progress beyond the opening rounds of the 100m in Paris.
To help smooth her progress to Paris Fraser is busy lining up a suitable manager for Lewis to handle the off-track buzz and business.
“I’m talking to a potential manager, she needs a good honest forthright person and I can help her with that,” Fraser said.
“I can see her going to the Paris Olympics and beyond that if she wants it. But there is no pressure from me. I want her to stay normal.
“I tell her to enjoy every race – that’s what I did and I had a great career and a great life. I want the same for her – to enjoy her running and to make the most of her talent.
“I had retired from mentoring last year, I’m 86 and I thought I was getting a bit too old. But then Torrie asked if I could mentor her. We met and we got on very well together. So now I want to see it through.”
Fraser is old enough and wise enough to know that Lewis’s Jamaican genes may be her X factor as she progresses from national to international and Olympic competition.
Lewis was born in Nottingham in central England to a Jamaican/Indian father and Scottish mother. She moved to Australia with her mother Wendy aged six, to live in Newcastle before settling in Brisbane.
Despite a small population of less than three million, Jamaica is the spiritual home of world sprinting, winning 24 Olympic gold medals, all of them in athletics, all in sprint events.
It is also home to a pantheon of Olympic sprint champions including Elaine Thompson Herah 100m/200m champion in 2020 Tokyo and 2016 Rio, Usain Bolt 100m/200m champion in 2008 Beijing and 2012 London, and Lewis’s childhood idol Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who won the Olympic 100m in 2008 and 2012 with her famous long, flying multi-coloured hair.
Fraser said if there was one thing she’d change about Lewis it would be her hair extensions. Fraser thinks she could be a bit faster and more streamlined if she didn’t have such long trailling plaits.
“Her idols have big hair so she may not want to listen to an old lady talking about hairstyles,” Fraser laughed. “There are many more important things to discuss.”
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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