Ilsa Konrads

Career

Ilsa Konrads was born in Riga, Latvia. In August 1944, she left with her parents Jānis and Elza, her grandmother, her older sister Eve, and her older brother John. The family first moved to Germany. This happened after German forces had occupied Latvia during the Second World War, followed by a re-occupation by Soviet troops.

They stayed in Germany until 1949. Their request to move to the United States was turned down because the family was too large. Instead, they were sent to a camp at Uranquinty in rural western New South Wales, a site that had once been a Royal Australian Air Force base. There, their father Jānis taught the children how to swim.

He was worried they might drown in the many watering holes and dams around the camp. Jānis found work as a dentist in Sydney. The family first lived in Pennant Hills, then moved to Bankstown. Elza enrolled in the dentistry program at the University of Sydney, since her degree from the University of Riga was not accepted, but she left the program because raising three children was too demanding.

Ilsa and her siblings went to Revesby Primary School. One of the teachers there was Don Talbot, who worked as an assistant to Frank Guthrie at the Bankstown Swimming Pool. Every day before sunrise, Ilsa and her brother John rode their bikes to the Bankstown pool for a two-hour training session. They went home for breakfast and school, then cycled back to the pool after school for another session.

In 1958, when she was 13, the results of Talbot’s training showed. At the New South Wales championships, she broke the world records for the 800-metre and 880-yard freestyle. She then beat Lorraine Crapp to become the first woman to swim 440 yards in under five minutes. At the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, she defeated both Crapp and Dawn Fraser to win the 440-yard freestyle.

In the two years before the 1960 Summer Olympics, she set world records in the 440-yard, 400-metre, 1500-metre, and 1650-yard events. At the Olympics, nerves got the better of her. She was eliminated in the heats of the 100-metre freestyle and finished fourth in the 400-metre freestyle, about 12 seconds slower than her personal best. She earned a silver medal in the 4 x 100-metre freestyle relay, swimming with Fraser, Crapp, and Alva Colquhoun.