<P> Fanny Durack was Australia's first female gold medalist . She earned this medal at the 1912 Summer Olympics, where she represented a combined team of Australia and New Zealand, known as the Australasian team . </P> <P> Participation costs for Australian athletes, costs like travel to and lodging at, early Olympic games were expected to be paid by the local sport federation sponsoring the athlete . </P> <P> In early Australian swimming history as it pertains to the Olympics, there was an attempt to prevent women from participating by male Australian swimming administrators . </P> <P> Throughout the history of the Olympics, sports popular exclusively with women or that have been very popular with women have been excluded . The situation extends beyond the popular women's sport of netball to women's cycling, which was excluded for many years despite having world championships for women being organised by 1958 . It extends to field hockey, a sport included for men as early as 1908 but not competed by women until 1980 . Lawn bowls is a popular women's sport that has been included in the Commonwealth Games for many years but has not made the Olympic program . While primarily a sport for women, netball allows for mixed - gendered teams, but the Olympics do not allow mixed - gendered team sports . </P>

History of women's participation in the olympics