NO OTHER sportswoman has shown such versatile talent as Mildred “Babe” Didrikson, who was an All-American basketball player, an expert diver, rollerskater and bowler, won two gold and one silver medal in athletics at the 1932 Olympics and, after the war, became the best female golfer.
In several polls she was voted the world’s greatest female competitor of the 20th century. The celebrated US sports writer Grantland Rice said: “She is beyond all belief until you see her perform. Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical co-ordination, the world of sport has ever seen.”
One of six children of Norwegian migrants, she was born in Texas and as a youngster excelled at physical activities, with her father even making weightlifting equipment out of a broomstick and flat-irons. Initially concentrating on basketball, she became interested in athletics when she read about the 1928 Olympics and decided to focus on the 1932 Games in Los Angeles. “My goal”, she announced “is to be the greatest athlete who ever lived.” She even persuaded her neighbours to cut their hedges so she could practise hurdling over them.
In 1932 she alone represented her company in the Amateur Athletic Union national championships, which served as the selection competition for the Olympics. She was up against squads who numbered more than 20 athletes in the team competition but took part in eight of the 10 events, winning six, all within three hours. She set world records in the 80m hurdles, the javelin and the high jump, also finishing first in the long jump, the shot and the baseball throw. The team competition was hers.
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For the Olympics Didrikson had to choose three events from the five for which she had qualified. She was never popular with her teammates because of her arrogance, telling newspapers: “I am out to beat everybody in sight and that’s just what I am going to do.” In Los Angeles she began by winning the first women’s Olympic javelin event and then set a world record in the 80m hurdles of 11.7sec.
She tied for first place in the high jump after a jump-off with another American, Jean Shiley. An official then ruled that the western roll style of Didrikson was illegal, because her head was crossing the bar before her body. Although the world record height of 1.67m was credited to both athletes, Shiley was given the gold.
The sporting exploits of Didrikson did not entrance all of her compatriots, with Joe Williams, a New York sports writer, stating: “It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring.”
Disqualified from future Olympics because her photo was used in an advertising campaign for a car, she played baseball in a touring men’s team for a few years before concentrating on golf. That also brought her romance because one day she played with George Zaharias, a 130kg professional wrestler nicknamed The Crying Greek from Cripple Creek.
They married in 1938 and the genial George accompanied her to tournaments, blowing clouds of smoke from his cigar to indicate the wind direction. Although only 1.65m (5ft 5in) tall and weighing 66kg, she generated enormous power off the tee. When asked how she could often drive 250m and was once measured at 305m with a following wind and a dry fairway, she replied: “You have got to loosen your girdle and let it rip.”
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In 1946 she took the US Amateur title and the next year won 17 consecutive tournaments, including the British Ladies’ Championship.
Turning professional in 1948, she won the first of three US Open titles and claimed the world championship four times. She even made the cut in men’s tournaments, including a US PGA event. The Associated Press agency voted her Sportswoman of the Year four times as a golfer, a title she had first won for her Olympic triumphs.
Diagnosed with colon cancer in 1953, she won her last US Open title a year later by 12 strokes, four weeks after an operation and while still wearing a colostomy bag. When the condition returned she struggled defiantly, racked by pain in her spine, but died in 1956.
The American journalist and novelist Paul Gallico wrote of Didrikson: “On every count, accomplishment, temperament and personality and colour, she belongs to the ranks of those story-book champions of our age of innocence. She was the most talented athlete, male or female, ever developed in our country.”