With the Olympics a year away, she continued an 8-hour daily training regimen, despite the family's low finances, which required her to work full-time as a clerk.

[6] At the start of the Olympics, four months past her seventeenth birthday, Gibson made her first journey to London, without her family because they could not afford the cost of the trip.

"[7] Having lost by a tiny measure, Gibson noted, in passing, during an interview conducted in July 2008, near the medal win's 60th anniversary, her persistent feeling that had her father been able to cheer her on at the Wembley Empire Pool, she might have done better.

[1] With publicity surrounding London's 2012 Summer Olympics, Brown, along with the small number of athletes in their eighties and nineties remaining from the event held 64 years earlier, continued to evoke nostalgic tributes.

The portrait was painted by artist Kristina Macaulay and was originally commissioned by North Lanarkshire City Council in 2006 to commemorate unique talent local to the area.