During a career that spanned three Olympics, Shirley Strickland, later Shirley Strickland de la Hunty, won seven medals, more than any Australian in athletics.
Her haul included three Olympic gold medals, including back-to-back 80m hurdles at the 1952 Helsinki Games and 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Until Strickland, noother female track athlete had won consecutive Olympic finals in the same event. The third gold medal was for the sprint relay, again in Melbourne.
Her feats were even more remarkable given she did not take athletics seriously until she was 22, and she was 31 and a mother when she won two of her Olympic golds.
Strickland also won a silver and three bronze Olympic medals, and three gold and two silver medals at Empire Games, the forerunners to the Commonwealth Games.
Prime Minister John Howard said Strickland had a major place in Australia's sporting history.
"That era of her and Marjorie Jackson and Betty Cuthbert, and all of that group, was just extraordinary and she was a wonderful exemplifier of the tenacity and skill of those women who did Australia proud."
Running legend Ron Clarke said Strickland was an intelligent, gracious and straight-talking woman who stood for hard work and self-discipline.
"She was talented enough to be anything. She couldn't understand people who didn't dedicate themselves to goals and targets."
Shirley Strickland de la Hunty also was an academic. She taught mathematics for 23 years and became a university lecturer in physics, calculus, environmental science and environmental history.
After her career as an athlete, she became involved in sports administration, taking up managerial positions with Australian teams at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and the 1976 Montreal Games. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 1957 and made an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2001.
That was the year she hit the headlines again, this time for auctioning her Olympic medals and memorabilia. She was forgiven when it was made public that the funds raised would help protect old-growth forest, and contribute to her grandchildren's education.
In 2002, the International Olympic Committee awarded Strickland de la Hunty a prestigious Olympic Order for her contribution to world sport.
She is survived by four children and 15 grandchildren.
