Purple plaque for Wales' first woman to win Olympic gold

PIONEERING Olympic swimmer will be honoured today with the unveiling of a purple plaque at the city lake where she trained.

- IAN LEWIS Reporter [e-mail]

Irene Steer was the first woman from Wales to win an Olympic gold medal, which she achieved at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.

It would be 96 years before another Welsh woman, cyclist Nicole Cooke, emulated this success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

It is a very exclusive club, with only six Welsh women to have won an Olympic gold to date.

The 1912 Stockholm Olympics were the first to feature women’s swimming. Of the 2,500 athletes, only 50 were women and Irene was one of this two per cent cohort.

She swam the “anchor” leg in the 4x100m freestyle relay final on for Great Britain. The team won gold in a world record time of five minutes and 52.8 seconds.

Between 1907 and 1913, Irene held the Welsh Championship unbeaten every year. She is described in the races’ reports as a “beautiful”, “neat” and “most graceful swimmer”.

She was born in 1889 in Cardiff and attended Cardiff High School for Girls. Her family lived on Bute Street before moving to The Parade in Roath.

Her father, a draper, was said to be keen for her to get plenty of exercise and took her to learn to swim aged eight.