You won’t be sorry taking roughly two minutes out of your day to honor past swimming heroes in the form of a rarely seen Australian swimming clip circa 1954.
Australia’s National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA) released portions of a never-before-seen film donated by two of its Olympic champions of the past, Jon Henricks and Lorraine Thurlow (nee Crapp).
The entire film was created during their North American tour in 1954 and the excerpted clip here includes rare footage of the Australian team competing at that year’s British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada. Henricks and fellow Olympic champion swimmer John Devitt are heard narrating the clip, which was filmed by Bill Holland, the Australian Swimming Team Manager, as well as the Secretary of the Queensland Amateur Swimming Association (QASA) at the time.
Australia fared well in the swimming events at the Games, with Henricks earning 3 gold medals and Crapp also snagging three golds for the nation. Remembering this particular competition, Crapp reflects positively, saying, “Team spirit was great. We were very young. What we did in Vancouver 1954 was the beginning of the golden era of Australian swimming, leading up to Melbourne 1956.”
While certainly nostalgic, at the same time the video can certainly make one appreciate the modernization of our sport, where we now have high-tech goggles, suits, starting blocks and sophisticated timing systems.
All the starts are practically belly flops!
I was in that menès relay Camada came 2nd.
Very interesting to see what the outdoor pool at UBC looked like while it was new and still functional