[2] Durack learned to swim in Sydney's Coogee Baths[2] in the South-Eastern Suburbs using breaststroke, the only style for which there was a championship for women at that time.

The New South Wales Ladies Swimming Association initially was opposed to women participating in the Olympic Games.

Durack and Wylie were initially refused permission by NSWLSA to compete, but later they were allowed to go provided they bore their own expenses.

A week before the Australian team left for the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, in May 1920, Durack suffered appendicitis[8] and had an emergency appendectomy.

[2] During World War I, The Golden Virgin statue of Mary and the infant Jesus on top of the Basilique Notre-Dame de Brebières in Albert, Somme, France, was hit by a shell on 15 January 1915, and slumped to a near-horizontal position.