Bill Ryan

One Woman's Olympic Journey Bill Ryan

"How did a girl raised in a town with no sports for girls get to stand on the medal box at the Olympic Games and receive a Silver Medal from the Prince of Denmark? Not on her own." - Joan Rosazza. This book takes you back to Melbourne, Australia to the Olympic Games of 1956. 19-year-old Joan Rosazza, a swimmer for the USA, wrote 19 letters home during her Olympic experience. Her fresh eyes and joyful spirit shine through as she describes living in the Olympic Village, competing against the powerful Australian swimmers, and befriending the Hungarian women swimmers, whose families were suffering back home from the Russian invasion of Hungary. What follows is a description of the women's 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay from December 6, 1956... The swimming final of the women's 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay is about to start. Eight swimmers are on the blocks. The starter fires his gun, off they dive, then he fires it again while "cleaning" it, but that didn't stop the race. The eight women, one for each team of four, are already flying down the pool. The USA team is taking on the heavily favored Australian quartet, including the legendary Dawn Fraser. This is the story of that race, and of the beginnings, years before, at a small town YMCA in Torrington, Connecticut where Joan Rosazza joins a girls swim team formed by a woman and Olympian from another era, Doris O'Mara Murphy.