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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
399:, Brown, along with the small number of athletes in their eighties and nineties remaining from the event held 64 years earlier, continued to evoke nostalgic tributes. She gave advice to the 2012 athletes: "You must love doing it, train very hard."
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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
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Retiring from competition after marriage, Catherine Gibson became a hotelkeeper, and remained widowed after the death of her second husband in 1995. Catherine Gibson Brown died in 2013, aged 82 years, at
Victoria Hospital in
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Having lost by a tiny measure, Gibson noted, in passing, during an interview conducted in July 2008, near the medal win's 60th anniversary, her persistent feeling that had her father been able to cheer her on at the
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During the London 2012 Olympic Games, Brown was united with the original portrait of herself. The portrait was painted by artist
Kristina Macaulay and was originally commissioned by
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City
Council in 2006 to commemorate unique talent local to the area. The image of the painting featured as part of one of the largest local open air galleries in the UK.
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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!"
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Gibson persevered with competitive swimming through the 1950s and, in the sixteen years of pursuing the sport, managed to achieve 29 UK records.
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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
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In 2008, Catherine Gibson Brown was inducted into the
Scottish Sports Hall of Fame. With publicity surrounding London's
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she won the bronze medal in a time of 5 minutes 22.5 seconds. Reporting from the
Olympics on 9 July 1948, a
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618:"It was the youth of the world getting together: Cathy Brown, 77, Bronze medal, 400m freestyle swimming"
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and she was the only
British woman to win a bronze. Her success was honoured with a wax figure at
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website spotlighting the
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Catherine Brown alongside portrait by Kristina Macaulay
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European Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming
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339:backstroke
323:water polo
319:Motherwell
313:Early life
148:backstroke
88:1931-03-21
760:Olympedia
752:news film
514:0261-3077
417:Kirkcaldy
335:freestyle
144:Freestyle
114:Kirkcaldy
687:BBC News
543:Archived
423:See also
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130:Swimming
59:"Cathie"
55:Nickname
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731:Team GB
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299:swimmer
140:Strokes
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