Beverley Whitfield
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Beverley Joy Whitfield | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National team | Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
15 June 1954 Wollongong, New South Wales |
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| Died | 20 August 1996 (aged 42) Shellharbour, New South Wales |
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| Height | 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 57 kg (126 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Breaststroke | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coach | Terry Gathercole and Don Talbot | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Beverley Joy Whitfield (15 June 1954 – 20 August 1996) was an Australian breaststroke swimmer of the 1970s, who won a gold medal in the 200-metre breaststroke at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. She was coached by Terry Gathercole and Don Talbot.
The daughter of a fitter and turner who worked in the Wollongong steelworks for more than 35 years, Whitfield was taught to swim along with her sister and their cousins at the age four by her maternal uncle, who was active in the local Learn to Swim program. Along with her sister and cousins, she was a childhood member of the Shellharbour Swimming Club, and was mainly taken to local swimming competitions by her father and uncle. This became even more pronounced following the death of her mother from cancer.
Whitfield showed a preference for the breaststroke from an early age, and would do a breaststroke kick when participating in freestyle activities. She showed a wider interest in sport while at Shellharbour Primary School, playing softball, netball, athletics and even playing cricket against her male classmates. However, this ended as she approached the end of her primary school years, with swimming coming to the fore. At the age of nine, Whitfield competed in the Primary School State Championships at North Sydney Pool, coming second to Kathy Whitlam, who happened to be the daughter of future Prime Minister of Australia Gough Whitlam. It was at the age of ten that Whitfield witnessed Australia's Dawn Fraser win her third consecutive 100-metre freestyle Olympic gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics, becoming the first Olympian to win an individual event three time consecutively, that forged her resolve to become an Olympian.
At the age of 11, her uncle decided to send her to Sydney every weekend to receive training from Terry Gathercole, an Olympic medal-winning breaststroker who was regarded as Australia's foremost breaststroke coach. This involved long daytrips for her family to help her fulfill her dream, usually starting before daybreak. During school holidays, she boarded with Gathercole to train under him on a daily basis. In her first year under Gathercole, she finished third in the 100-metre breaststroke in her age group at the New South Wales Championships. Her improvement was rapid, and in 1968, she won the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke in the under-14 division at the State championships before placing second in her age group at the national titles in Hobart. This her progress to the open Australian Championships, which were the selection trials for the Olympics team. At the age of 14, she narrowly missed selection for the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, after finishing sixth and fourth in the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke respectively in the trials.
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