When a 19-year-old Dawn Fraser won Olympic gold in Melbourne

To mark 100 days from the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Nine.com.au asked you what your favourite Olympic memories were in a survey. The response was overwhelming! We chose 50 of them to re-live, one a day, before new memories are made in Paris. Scroll on for today's memory.

Many Baby Boomers have precious memories of watching Dawn Fraser, the world-conquering swimmer with a scallywag personality, leave her opponents in her wake in the pool.

Watching from the stands or their lounge room in the very early days of Australian television, millions marvelled as a 19-year-old from the Sydney suburb of Balmain set a tremendous Olympic career in motion.

Fraser won her first of four Olympic gold medals at the Melbourne 1956 Games, edging Lorraine Crapp in the 100m freestyle, her pet event.

The two stars could not be split with 25 metres remaining, but Fraser powered away to win in a world record time of 62 seconds. Crapp won silver and another Australian, Faith Leech, secured bronze.

Watch the video at the top of the page to see how Dawn Fraser conquered Melbourne!

Fraser lowered the mark to 58.90 seconds over the years ahead, before another brilliant Australian swimmer called Shane Gould came along in the early 1970s and made the record her own.

Fraser became the first swimmer to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the same event, taking victory in the 100m freestyle at Melbourne 1956, Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964.

She was also a member of the victorious 4x100m freestyle relay team at the Melbourne Olympics, teaming up with Crapp, Leech and Sandra Morgan to win in 4:17.10.

Fraser was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985.

In 1993, she became the first female to achieve Sport Australia Hall of Fame "legend" status.

Fraser is 86.