| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Alva Merlin Colquhoun | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| National team |  Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 28 February 1942 Brisbane, Queensland | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 1 March 2025 (aged 83) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.69 m (5 ft 7 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 61 kg (134 lb) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Alva Merlin Colquhoun (married name Wyatt,[1] 28 February 1942 – 1 March 2025) was an Australian freestyle and butterfly swimmer of the 1950s, who won a silver medal in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.[2] She is perhaps best known for resolving a dispute at a team meeting during the Rome Olympics.
Making her first appearance for Australia at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Wales, Colquhoun combined with Dawn Fraser, Lorraine Crapp and Sandra Morgan to win the 4x110-yard freestyle relay. In the 110-yard freestyle, she was beaten into third place by her teammates Fraser and Crapp. In Rome, she anchored the team of Fraser, Crapp and Ilsa Konrads to a silver medal, trailing the American team by 2.4 seconds.[3] However, she was in the spotlight when during a team meeting, officials had ordered Fraser to swim the butterfly leg in the 4×100-metre medley relay preliminaries in place of the first-choice butterfly swimmer Jan Andrew, who was ordered to rest ahead of her individual event. Fraser refused, hitting Andrew with a pillow. It was only when Colquhoun volunteered that the dispute was resolved. However, she was replaced by Andrew in the final.
Colquhoun was married with two children and resided in Baddaginnie, Victoria.[1] She died on 1 March 2025, a day after her 83rd birthday.[4]
See also
Notes
- 1 2 "Our super-star swimmer". UnitingAgeWell.org. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
Alva Wyatt ... forever remembered in the halls of sporting fame as swimming legend Alva Merlin Colquhoun
- ↑ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Alva Colquhoun". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 3 December 2016.
Full name: Alva Merlin Colquhoun
- ↑ Olympic Swimmer has Eastern Air, The Age, (Friday, 23 September 1960), p. 15.
- ↑ "Alva Colquhoun". Olympedia. Retrieved 6 December 2025.
References
- Andrews, Malcolm (2000). Australia at the Olympic Games. Sydney, New South Wales: ABC Books. pp. 97–98. ISBN 0-7333-0884-8.
External links
- Alva Colquhoun Wyatt at the Australian Olympic Committee
- Alva Colquhoun at World Aquatics
- Alva Colquhoun at Olympics.com
- Alva Colquhoun at Olympedia
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