Ilsa Konrads
Konrads at 1960 Olympics
|
|||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Ilze Konrads | ||||||||||||||||||
| National team |
 Australia
|
||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
29 March 1944 Riga, Latvia |
||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.72 m (5 ft 8 in) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 68 kg (150 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle | ||||||||||||||||||
|
Medal record
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Ilsa Konrads (Latvian: Ilze Konrade; born 29 March 1944) is an Australian former freestyle swimmer of the 1950s and 1960s, who won a silver medal in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay at the 1960 Summer Olympics. In her career, she set 12 individual world records, and after her swimming career ended, was the Australasian editor of Belle magazine. Along with her brother John Konrads, who also set multiple world records, and won gold in the 1500-metre freestyle, they were known as the Konrad Kids.
Born in Riga, Latvia, Konrads emigrated with her parents Janis and Elza, grandmother, elder sister Eve, and elder brother John in August 1944, initially to Germany. This came after Latvia's occupation by German troops during the Second World War and then re-occupation by Soviet troops. Living in Germany until 1949, their application to immigrate to the United States was refused on account of the large size of the family. They were relocated to a camp at Uranquinty, which was previously a base for the Royal Australian Air Force, in rural western New South Wales. There her father Janis taught the children to swim, fearing that they could drown in the many watering holes and dams in the camp.
Janis secured a job in Sydney as a dentist, and the family settled first in Pennant Hills and then Bankstown. Elza enrolled in the University of Sydney's dentistry program, as her qualification from the University of Riga was not recognized, but withdrew due to the demands of raising three children. Ilsa and her siblings attended Revesby Primary School, where one of the schoolteachers was Don Talbot. Talbot was an assistant to Frank Guthrie at the Bankstown Swimming Pool.
...
Wikipedia