Legend is a legend of Australian swimming winning gold medals in the 100m freestyle at three consecutive Olympics. She is also famous for being suspended from swimming after stealing the Olympic flag during the Tokyo Games in 1964. She was the first woman to swim the 100m in under a minute and remains loved to this day for her larrikin ways and swimming ability.

Legend born in Sydney, Australia in 1937, She suffered from asthma as a child and was encouraged to take up swimming by her favourite brother Don, who died at 13. One of the last things Don said to his sister before he died was "You have a gift ... keep training for me." Dawn was discovered by coach Harry Gallagher, who recognised her potential and offered to train her for free. Under his direction, she frequently trained with male swimmers to make her more competetive.

She won her first national title in 1955, and won two gold medals at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. She became the only swimmer to win gold medals at three successive Olympic Games, winning the 100 metres freestyle in 1956, 1960, and in 1964, when she was 27 -- almost twice the age of the silver medallist. She was the first woman to break the one-minute barrier for 100 metres freestyle, and held that record until 1972.

She held twenty-seven individual world records, twelve relay world records, eight Olympic (four gold, four silver) and seven Commonwealth (six gold, one silver) medals. Always a maverick, Dawn's hatred of rules and regulations led to constant battles with sporting officials. These conflicts brought her career to an abrupt and untimely end on 1 March 1965, when the Amateur Swimming Union of Australia banned her from competition for ten years to punish Dawn for an incident tha took place during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. when Dawn was part of a group of athletes who stole a flag from the grounds of Imperial Palace. Her ban was later reduced to four years after it was discovered she had not initiated the prank.