Olympiaplein, Amsterdam, August 3, 1930
The cinders of the Olympiaplein—the very training ground of the Amsterdam Games—were set alight as the finest athletes of the Netherlands gathered to contest the national titles. Tollien “Tol” Schuurman caused the officials' chronometers to snap shut at 12.0 seconds, a feat that equalled the world mark set by Canada’s Myrtle Cook back in '28.
Schuurman, the schoolmaster’s daughter, had been a mere slip of a girl of fifteen during the 1928 home Olympics and was deemed too tender in years to compete. Four years later in Los Angeles, her Olympic journey would end abruptly in the heats. However, at the 1930 Women's World Games, she proved her mettle by plundering silver in both the century and the furlong. A woman of firm political convictions, she later declined to even consider setting foot in the Berlin Stadium for the 1936 Games.