Catherine Gibson

Catherine Gibson (21 March 1931 – 25 June 2013), later known by her married name Catherine Brown, was a Scottish swimmer. During a 16-year career she won three European Championships medals and a bronze medal at the 1948 Summer Olympics, Britain's sole swimming trophy in the home-based Games. In 2008, she was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame. Early life Catherine "Cathie" Gibson was from Motherwell, the daughter of James and Mary Gibson. Her father was employed at the town swimming pool, and her two brothers played water polo, so young Cathie learned to swim too: "I always had a love of the water," she recalled in 2008. She won a prize in a girls' competition in 1942. Athletic career In 1947, at the age of 16, Gibson was a member of the British swimming team at the European Championships. Gibson won silver medals in the 400m freestyle and the 100m backstroke and a bronze in the 100m freestyle relay. With the Olympics a year away, she continued an 8-hour daily training regimen, despite the family's low finances, which required her to work full-time as a clerk. She won the 1947 and 1948 ASA National Championship 220 yards freestyle titles and the 1947 and 1948 ASA National Championship 440 yards freestyle titles. At the start of the Olympics, four months past her seventeenth birthday, Gibson made her first journey to London, without her family because they could not afford the cost of the trip. She competed in the 100m backstroke, 400m individual medley, 4×100m freestyle relay and the 400m freestyle in which she won the bronze medal in a time of 5 minutes 22.5 seconds. Reporting from the Olympics on 9 July 1948, a Guardian reporter wrote that "Miss Gibson, Britain's hope, was at or near the rear and she did not begin to come up until 300 metres had been swum. Then how she went!"