Name Jean Stewart Role Swimmer | ||
 | ||
Olympic medals Swimming at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metre backstroke | ||
Education Otago Girls' High School | ||
Jean stewart
Jean Hurring (née Stewart, born 23 December 1930) is a former swimmer from New Zealand.
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Biography
Born in Dunedin in 1930, Stewart was educated at Otago Girls' High School.
When she was active as a swimmer, New Zealand had no swimming coach, and Stewart was mentored by Bill Wallace, who she describes as an "enthusiast". Wallace had an interest in horse racing and from that, Stewart adopted interval training as an innovation. She had also set up a pulley system in her bedroom for weight training that was specific to swimming. She represented her native country at two consecutive Summer Olympics, 1952 and 1956. In 1952 she won the bronze medal in the women's 100 metres backstroke at the Helsinki Games. She shared a room in Helsinki with the only other New Zealand female competitor, Yvette Williams, who was also from Dunedin.
Stewart also won medals in the 110 yards backstroke at the Empire Games; silver in 1950 and bronze in 1954. As of 2016, she remains to be the only New Zealand woman to have won an Olympic swimming medal.
Stewart married fellow Dunedin swimmer Lincoln Hurring after the Helsinki Games, and they settled in Auckland. Their son is world silver medalist swimmer Gary Hurring. As of 2016, Hurring lives in a retirement village in Takapuna on Auckland's North Shore. Her son keeps her Olympic medal.
Stewart is one of the eight New Zealand pool swimmers who have been inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame; the ninth inductee, Barrie Devenport, is an ocean swimmer. Stewart is the only pool swimmer inducted who has not won a gold medal at either the Olympics or at Commonwealth Games. Her son is one of the other inductees.