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Profile - Decima Norman
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Decima Norman was Australia's first real Golden Girl. Almost unknown, she shocked the Australian athletics world winning three events in the 1937 National Championships. |
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Decima Clara Norman was born in Tammin, Western Australian, in 1909. Her name was chosen by her mother, as a favour to a friend who had been reading a novel in which the heroine was a woman called Decima Deane. Decima lost both her parents early in life and was raised by her brother Frank and sister-in-law Elizabth in North Perth. The couple adopted Decima and gave her every encouragement in her sporting endeavours. Decima, a small brunette with blue eyes, had always been good at outdoor activities in her younger years. She was Perth College’s champion athlete in 1923 and then became Western Australian interschools triple jump champion. Demonstrating her all round abilities, she also captained the school basketball (netball) team and starred in the hockey team, as well as being competitive in tennis and swimming. Later, she also won a variety of life-saving and beach sprinting sports championships. In Western Australia, there was no organised athletics for women after girls had left school, so Decima concentrated on her second favourite sport, hockey. With her speed and athletic ability, she starred in a number of premiership finals and was selected in the Western Australian state hockey team in 1935. This team competed in the Eastern states, and provided Decima with her first impressions of the rest of Australia. Her first sporting love was still athletics and, even in the absence of competition in Perth, she had continued training in the hope that sooner or later an opportunity to compete would be presented. While she was training on her own, at the Esplanade in Perth one night in 1932, a man she didn’t know approached her. He congratulated her on her efforts and asked her about her athletics credentials. Impressed by her enthusiasm in training alone for a sport for was virtually non-existent in the state, this man, Frank Preston, a former professional athlete, offered to coach her. Decima immediately agreed and the two began preparing for the inaugural Western Australian amateur women’s State Championships to be conducted in Northam in a month’s time. Though Preston had told Norman that with her enthusiasm and proper coaching, she might one day a champion, he remembered that, when he first saw her run, she looked like a ‘hen in flight’. As such, he tried to take her back through some of the basics and correct some of her faults. At first she was discouraged by Frank Preston’s coaching, remembering “My leg action was wrong, my arm action was wrong, I did not run sufficiently on my toes, my balance was not good, my breathing had to be corrected, and so on. In fact, he pointed out so many faults and corrected me so many times that I wondered why he had even been interested enough in my sprinting to offer to help me at all. It did not seem possible that a person could have so many faults and still appear a potential champion.” However, Preston encouraged her and she persevered in the hope of future improvements. The amateur championships in Northam were too close to do too much serious training, but Decima entered, mainly for experience and the chance to run again competitively. The main opposition was to be schoolgirl champions, though some had recorded promising times in the school sports. Frank Preston’s confidence inspired her and helped overcome the nervousness she was feeling leading into the Championships. On the day she managed to win both 100y and 220y races, running promising times of 12.2 and 28.4, and achieved one of her aims – to win a state athletics championship. Anxious to continue her development, she tried to arouse interest in forming an amateur athletics club for women in Perth, but was unable to gain any success with other popular sports well established. She continued to train with Frank Preston, and, a year later, she repeated her victories in both WA titles, improving her time in the 220y, by a full second, to 27.4. Her time in the 100y was not taken, due to a mix-up amongst officials, but some unofficial watches clocked her at 11.0. Though this time, which equalled the world record, was unofficial, it showed that Decima seemed to be improving. These women’s state sprint titles were never contested again, however, so Decima had to be content to continue training and restrict her competitive events to hockey and beach sports. Decima’s mentor Frank Preston had written to the Women’s Amateur Athletic Association of Australia (WAAAA), asking how Decima might go about seeking selection for the 1934 Empire Games in London. He was advised there was no possibility of this until Decima was a registered member of the WAAAA. To become a member, Decima needed to be registered with a women’s amateur athletics club and a member of a state association. Western Australia had neither and so Decima’s ambitions were again stymied. Around this time, Decima’s story was publicised by the Sydney sporting newspaper ‘The Referee’ and the Perth media. The Referee tried to arrange for Decima to gain employment in the eastern states to assist her selection aims, but this came to no avail. Decima continued her training, always trying to improve some aspect of her technique and benefiting from regular letters from a respected US coach who communicated current trends in American sprint coaching. In late 1935, Preston and Norman arranged with the Subiaco Football Club to conduct some amateur women’s sprints during a series of men’s professional races held at the club grounds. These races became quite popular and the dozens of young women who competed were seen to improve their performances through regular training and racing. Most contests were handicaps, but in any scratch events, Decima Norman’s name was almost certain to be in the winner’s position. At times, special record attempts were staged to allow Decima to compare her performances against Australians from the East Coast. In an attempt on the 100y record, Decima got a bad start, which was usually her strength, and could only clock 11.6, a good time, but outside the record. In an attempt on the 100m record, Decima had a better race, recording 12.4, just 0.1 short of the standard. She actually had run 100m in 12.3, but this was at a special trial just before the record attempt, and not eligible for ranking purposes. Decima’s times were comparable with the performances of Olympians Edie Robinson and Eileen Wearne, who were the top Australian sprinters of the time, but without an association she had no chance of setting official records or selection in an Australian team. Even star athletes from the east, such as Clarice Kennedy, who won four events at the National Games and Olympic trials, were unable to gain selection in 1936. The success of the women’s races at Subiaco spurred Decima and other keen women athletes to consider forming amateur clubs. Though they were happy with the conduct of the Subiaco races, the Western Australians knew that the AWAAU would frown on their competing with professionals on the same programme. In addition, they wished to extend the women’s programme to include field events. After a couple of meetings, the women allied themselves with the WA men’s association (who helped by providing officials and equipment) and began to conduct interclub events at Leederville Oval in late 1936. The two clubs, Perth and Surf, both featured some very promising athletes, but it was Decima Norman who won most of the events she contested. In the inaugural 1937 Western Australian championships, Decima won every event (75y, 100y, 220y, 90y Hurdles, Long Jump and High Jump) but her modesty made her a popular champion, even with her rivals. After her record performance in these championships, she said, “I was fortunate…due probably to the fact that I had much more experience in athletics and had been longer on the track than the other competitors”. The new Western Australian women’s association now sought affiliation with the Australian body, but was informed that a minimum of three local clubs was required to register. Therefore, the women formed another club at Cottesloe to comply with the ruling and began to prepare for trials to select WA’s first ever team to contest the women’s national championships. Throughout the winter, the keenest athletes continued to train seriously and also conducted fund-raising events. Though initially it was thought that only one or two athletes might be able to be sent, the offer of billeting through the Victorian association enabled a team of four to travel to Melbourne with coach and manager Frank Preston. In a near disaster, just prior to the trials, Decima injured her collarbone while playing in the Hockey Grand Final. She had actually scored the winning goal in the final, but the injury meant she would be unable to train or compete for the next month. She was selected in the WA team on the basis of her past performances and joined the rest of her party on the long train trip to Melbourne. Travelling from Perth to the Eastern States was no easy matter in the 1930s. The long train or sea journey that most travellers had to endure were not conducive to athletes maintaining top form, but the WA quartet used every opportunity to stretch and train. At the stop at Southern Cross, they staged an entertaining match race against an engaging conductor who did not believe their claims that they were championship athletes. At the end of the challenge, the conductor and the amused passenger audience, including a former premier of Western Australia, had no doubt that the women were going to represent their state with honour. After a number of other short stops, and an overnight stay in Adelaide, Decima and the team eventually arrived in Melbourne and were amazed to see Royal Park track where the national championships were to be held. It featured a 440y cinders track and modern facilities such as change rooms and massage rooms and the small team had no doubt that many Western Australian records would have been improved with such a facility in Perth. The Western Australians were a popular team at the titles; everyone seemed to appreciate the struggle the women had endured to even compete at the titles and perhaps, in the Australian way, they were supporting the team as an underdog against the strong NSW and Victorian teams. Western Australian teams were still rather a novelty in the East of Australia and media interest was high. The girls participated in a photographic shoot while they trained at Royal Park and their pictures were splashed through the Melbourne newspapers. On the first night of the championships, the Western Australians showed that they were anything but underdogs with both Norman and schoolgirl Joan Woodland qualifying for the 220y final. In the final, bitterly cold conditions chilled the Western Australians who were unfamiliar with such weather. Despite this, Decima Norman ran a good race and led the field into the a strong wind in the final straight, winning the final in a fast time of 25.9, considering the headwind. This first national title by a Western Australian thrilled Decima Norman and her coach, and inspired the whole team who were eager for the second day of competition. At this stage, journalists from the Eastern states began to become very interested in Decima Norman. The prospective men’s and women’s team for the 1938 Games did not look particularly strong, but the new Western Australian star seemed to promise much and her chances of selection for the Empire Games seemed strong. It may have been, at this stage, the time where she decided to tell some ‘fibs’ about her age. During the 1938 Empire Games, the press reported that Decima Norman had turned 23 during the Games - on 4 February - and this false data was also contained in her Empire Games entry form. The reason for her falsification of this data remains unknown. Respected statistician Paul Jenes believes 'many' women of the era altered their ages. Sometimes the truth is not uncovered until after the athlete's death. It is true now, as it was then, that younger athletes are generally percieved to have greater prospects of success than older stars. While she was developing as an athlete in the West, Decima or her coach may have followed the fortunes of the Eastern States athletes in gaining Australian selection. In one report of the 1932 National Games (and Olympic trials), detailing the dead-heat of Eileen Wearne and Chrissie Dahm, the reporter stated that Wearne was more likely to be chosen for the Olympic Games team as she was younger. Wearne had been the only selection in 1932, and Decima may have thought her Empire Games selection chances would improve if she claimed to be 22 years, rather than her true age of 28. Stating that her year of birth was 1915 made her appear younger than all of the top Australian women of the time – Clarice Kennedy, Thelma Peake, Doris Carter and Eileen Wearne – whereas she was actually older than all of them. On Day Two of the 1937 Championships, all four Western Australians qualified for their finals, with Decima looking particularly impressive winning her heat of the 100y with another convincing win. In the final, she did not get away too well, but had caught the field at the half-way mark and was too strong at the finish. Again, weather was against good times but Norman ran a decent 11.4 to beat the Queensland champion Thelma Peake with Joan Woodland scoring a surprise third place. To conclude a great day for Western Australia, Joy Barnett took third place in the 440y and then the Western Australian team of Nissen, Barnett, Woodland and Norman won the 4x110y relay from strong Eastern States opposition. This victory surprised everyone, even Decima Norman who later stated (in a comment obviously not destined for those in the Eastern states) the Westralians were “like miniatures compared with some of the very husky maids from the other States”. The only disappointment of the championships was in the Broad Jump, where Decima had fouled her first jump, a huge effort, ‘beyond the record marker’ according to the press, and, in the process jarred her heel, which she had bruised in training the prior week. As she had the 220y and relay still to go, she withdrew from her further attempts, allowing Thelma Peak to win her third successive national Long Jump title. In any case, the three wins gave Western Australia an amazing reward for their perseverance and small team. One gentleman remarked to Decima after the nationals, “Just as well you did not bring a big team over”. These performances earned Decima and Joan positions in the Australian team for the Empire Games in Sydney, in February 1938. After returning to Perth for a rest over Christmas and some more rigid training in the New Year, Decima and Joan travelled, by sea, to Sydney for the Games. Again travelling with coach Frank Preston, they trained for an hour a day on the Promenade Deck of the passenger ship Duntroon, the captain having volunteered its’ use, with complete relaxation for the rest of the day. This kept the girls in top form through the voyage and, in a special trial run in Adelaide against Woodland and some South Australian sprinters, Decima Norman impressed her coach so much he said “Produce form like that in Sydney and an Empire title is yours”. The Decima Norman story has just begun. Click here for Part Two. |
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