Born Perth, W.A.
21 November, 1917 – 27 June, 2004
From a Maylands family of battlers noted for producing fine swimmers, Evelyn de Lacy was just 14 when she won the 1932 Swim Through Maylands as a prelude to blossoming into Australia’s foremost women’s freestyler.
Tall, lean and lissom, she shrugged off food shortages during the Depression years and never looked back after the Legendary J P Sheedy became her coach in 1933 and urged her to concentrate on pool events.
The year she won her first WA 100yds title, clipping 1.2sec from the State record set a few months earlier. Competing in an invitation race in Crawley Baths, she gave Australian swimming officials food for thought by surging clear of English champion Joyce Cooper, a triple gold medallist at the inaugural Empire Games in Canada in 1930.
The brown-haired beauty – she did part-time modelling work – won the first of eight Australian championships in 1935, completing the 220-440yds double, a feat she repeated in 1936. In 1937 she added the 110 and 880yds crowns to her list.
Evelyn de Lacy made local swimming history in 1936 when she became WA’s first female Olympian, at the Berlin Games. She was added to the Australian team following an outcry over her earlier omission.
In Berlin she finished second to the eventual gold medallist in her heat of the 100m freestyle but was eliminated when fifth in her semi-final. In the 400m she was fifth in the fastest of the heats and did not make the semi-finals, even though six of the qualifiers had times up to 23sec slower. Subsequently the method of determining finalists was changed.
Experience gained in Berlin against the cream of European and American swimmers contributed to her successes at the 1938 Sydney Empire Games where she won a gold medal in the 110yds freestyle, a silver in the 4 x 110yds freestyle relay and a bronze in the 3 x 110yds medley relay.
A winner of State titles in Victoria and NSW as well as WA, she moved to the Eastern States to prepare for the 1940 Olympics but the outbreak of World War II brought a premature end to her international career. She married Albert Whillier in 1940 and retired from competitive swimming in 1943 after adding another NSW title to her collection. She then embarked on a coaching career – her daughter won two national breaststroke championships in the 1950’s – and was still active at Sydney’s Bronte Baths well into her seventies.