3.Babe Didrikson Zaharias
This American superstar excelled in basketball, track and field, and even golf. At the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, she won two gold medals, but she was deprived of a third in the high jump only because she had used the then-unorthodox Western roll to achieve the highest jump. Later, on the golf links, she won 17 straight amateur championships and became the first American holder of the British Ladies Amateur championship. As a pro, she was the leading money winner on the women’s professional golf circuit from 1948 to 1951.
4.Dawn Fraser
The Australian swimmer was the first woman swimmer to win gold medals in three consecutive Olympic Games (1956, 1960, 1964). From 1956 to 1964 she broke the women’s world record for the 100-metre freestyle race nine successive times. Her mark of 58.9 seconds, established on February 29, 1964, at North Sydney, was unbroken until January 8, 1972, when Shane Gould, a fellow Australian, achieved 58.5 at Sydney.
