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SYDNEY - Elderly Olympic swimming great Dawn Fraser fought off an intruder who threatened to kill her by kicking him in the groin with her titanium knee, she has said.
The 72-year-old Australian swimming legend said she "lost it" when she confronted two youths who woke her when they entered her daughter's home in Noosaville in eastern Queensland.
Fraser, became a global sensation aged 19 when she shattered the world record to win gold in the 100 metres freestyle at the 1956 Olympics. She went on to win eight Olympic medals, including four golds, and six Commonwealth Games gold medals during a career that spanned three Olympics before she retired in 1964.
Fraser, who turns 73 later this week, told Australian TV she used her reconstructed knee in self-defence when one of the youths threatened her.
"Out came this guy who then grabbed me around the throat and said 'I will kill you', and with that I grabbed him around the ear and hair and kneed him in the groin," she told Channel Seven television.
"I was threatened by the way he spoke to me and I'd never been spoken to like what he called me ... I think I lost it. I have got a titanium knee so it must have hurt him," she said.
Police said they had referred two youths to child protection services over the incident but said they were treating the investigation as a trespass incident, not a burglary, because no homes were broken into.
AFP/sf
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