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• Born 18 Sept 1906
• Australia/New South Wales
  
  Edith France Robinson became the first woman to represent Australia in an Olympic Games when she competed in both the 100y and 880y at the Amsterdam Olympics of 1928.
  
  She set national records for 100y, 100m, 220y and 440y in her career.
  
  Robinson continued to win state and national honours through until 1936 when, married as Edie Payne, she retired from competition.

Edie Robinson was a member of the 'City Girls' sports group in Sydney and one of the many activities they participated in was athletics.

On her nineteenth birthday, in 1925, Edie won the City Girls 75y and 110y (100m) Championships in promising times and she was encouraged to participate in other competitions.

In March 1926 she won the NSW Women's 100y title - held with the men's - and ran what was regarded as a national record of 12.3 seconds.

She was undefeated in scratch races from 1925 to the 1928 National Championshipst where she won the 100y in 12.0 and was duly selected as Australia's first ever female Olympian in athletics.

The long voyage to Amsterdam was not conducive to good training and Edie's fitness fell away. She had planned all sorts of on-board training but found she was reduced to little more than callisthenics.

On arrival in London she found the cinder tracks hard for training and experienced some shin soreness. In Amsterdam she did well to qualify for the semi-finals of the 100m but could not progress to the final.

She ran much better after decent training and did well in some meets in England and Ireland before returing to Australia, again a seven week trip by sea.

Returning to Australia she rested and competed quite casually over the next couple of seasons but came back to her best in 1931/32. During this season Robinson had a thrilling series of duels with fellow NSW sprinter Eileen Wearne over 100y and 220y.

They traded victories throughout the season but Wearne won the National 100y title by inches and earned Olympic selection over Robinson and the hurdler Clarice Kennedy.

Robinson continued competing and ran in the 1933, 1935 and 1936 Nationals before retiring from the track. She won numerous state and national championships in sprint events to 440y and in 1935 became the first woman to win the 100y/220y double at the Nationals.

Edie Robinson also set national records from 100y to 440y throughout her career and equalled the world record of 11.0 for 100y in 1934.

At ninety six years of age, Mrs Edie (Robinson) Payne was Australia's oldest living Olympian as the Sydney Olympics approached in the year 2000.  Mrs Payne passed away just before the Sydney Games, but she will always be remembered as Australia's first Olympian.

Personal Bests

50y     6.2	Sydney 11/12/30
75y     8.5	Sydney 19/11/27
100y    11.0	Sydney 17/03/34
110y    13.2	Sydney 07/01/28
220y    25.6	Sydney 05/03/32
440y    61.0	Sydney 00/03/32
LJ       4.94	Sydney 07/03/31
HJ       1.35	Sydney 16/11/29
Discus  25.05	Sydney 16/02/31

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