Forgotten three-time U.S. gold medalist Victoria Manalo Draves is finally getting some recognition after decades of going virtually unnoticed in the public eye.

The city of San Francisco recently decided to honor the 80 year-old San Francisco native by naming a park after her. The park will be located by the Bessie Carmichael Elementary School in San Francisco's South of Market district, where Draves grew up. It is expected to be built sometime next year.

“We just got an approval to make the park,” said Draves, who currently lives in Souther California with her family. “A number of people are working very hard on making it possible.”

In the 1948 Olympics in London Draves won two gold medals for platform diving and received titles for the springboard events as part of the U.S team.

Draves was born in December 31, 1924, the daughter of a Filipino man and an English woman. At 16, she started diving, being trained by Phil Patterson.

Draves was once discriminated against when Patterson told her she couldn’t swim with the other white swimmers in the Fairmont Swimming and Diving club on Nob Hill. Instead, Patterson formed a new club for her called the Patterson School of Swimming and Diving with Manalo as the only member.

“I think he was kind of prejudice,” said Draves over a phone interview.

Draves was once told to use her mother’s last name, Taylor, while she competed to avoid any setbacks.

“He never said much about it,” said Draves as she talked about her father’s reaction to the change of her last name.

After being trained by Patterson, Draves was trained by Jimmy Hughes, who coached her to her first Amateur Athletic Union diving competition. When Hughes couldn’t coach her any longer, Draves met Lyle Draves, who soon became her coach and husband in 1946. In addition to the gold medals in 1948, Draves won the U.S. National Diving Championships in 1946, 1947, and 1948.

Many Filipinos, who actually proposed the idea of naming the park after her, admire her accomplishments. Some supporters said it makes perfect sense to name the park after her, since she used to attend Bessie Carmichael Elementary, which was then called Franklin Grammar School.

"A lot of Filipinos live here in the Bay Area," said Marie M. Mallare, a faculty member at the University of San Francisco in their Philippine studies and Asian American studies programs.

According to supporters in the Bay Area, Filipino students view Draves as a role model.

Andrea De Leon, a 21-year-old student from SF State, admires Draves for her achievements. "You don't see many Filipino American women do this (Olympics)," said De Leon. "She perservered and is very humble."

Some said she was destined to win, since her surname, Manalo, means “winner” in Tagalog, the official language of Filipinos.

The Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame has yet to add Draves to their growing list. According to the the organization, one of the criteria an inductee must meet states, "(A) nominee must be one who has made an extraordinary impact on the sports history of the Bay Area and gained national fame."

Students such as De Leon plan to collaborate with USF and Manilatown, an organization for the community, to get Draves inducted to the Hall of Fame.

“They never acknowledged it,” said Draves.

Last May, she and her husband were at San Francisco City Hall, where supporters and politicians such as former Philippines President Fidel Ramos celebrated with the former gold medalist.

“It’s quite an honor and a thrill (to have a park named after me),” said Draves.