Betty Cuthbert, Australia’s “golden girl” of track and field, revered for her Olympic gold-medal feats and then her long and spirited struggle against multiple sclerosis, has died in Western Australia. She was 79.

Her death was confirmed on Sunday by Athletics Australia, the national governing body, which said she had died overnight. She was living at a nursing home in Mandurah, south of Perth.

When she burst from the blocks at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, Cuthbert, a shy 18-year-old with golden hair, was little known in the world of elite sprinters, despite having set a world record in the 200 meters. She had purchased tickets as a spectator when the Olympics neared, doubting she would make the Australian team.

But Cuthbert became a national hero, sprinting down the red-brick track at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia’s first-ever Olympic Games, her mouth distinctively open as she ran.