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Australian Story: Nov 11 / 18

Former Olympic swimmer Nicole Livingstone will introduce a two part Australian Story on the late swimming champ, Murray Rose.

2013-11-07_0046Former Olympic swimmer Nicole Livingstone will introduce a two part Australian Story on the late swimming champ, Murray Rose.

He became a national hero after winning three Olympic gold medals, but Australian swimmer Murray Rose remained an enigma until his death last year.

He burst onto the scene as the golden-haired poster boy of the 1956 Games in Melbourne, picked up another gold in the 1960 Rome Olympics, and was controversially barred from competing in Tokyo in 1964.

But it was Murray Rose’s interests outside of the pool that he says helped give him a winning edge and focus his mind.

He was a vegetarian and follower of an Indian philosopher, long before it became fashionable.

And he was an actor who appeared in American films and television series.

But behind the scenes, Murray Rose was a private man.

Following his death from acute leukaemia last year and drawing on a final interview recorded with John Clarke in the months before his death, Australian Story brings new insights into the man known as “The Seaweed Streak”.

The program features excerpts from Rose’s memoir, “Life is Worth Swimming” which is soon to be published posthumously.

His American-born wife Jodi, a former principal ballerina with the New York Joffrey Ballet, speaks for the first time about the sometimes unconventional ideas that drove her husband.

Also interviewed are a roll-call of Australian swimming greats including veteran coach Forbes Carlile, and Rose’s contemporaries Dawn Fraser, Jon Henricks, John Devitt and John Konrads, plus younger stars such as Kieren Perkins – all themselves Olympic gold medallists.

Fifty years after the event, Australian Story discovered that the decision to bar Murray Rose from competing in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics remains a polarising issue in swimming circles.

“I think they got it wrong – it was officialdom gone mad,” says Australian Olympic boss John Coates.

Monday November 11 and Monday November 18 at 8pm on ABC1.

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