Mary Rand – 1940 –

Mary Rand

‘Just an ordinary working mum who took part in the games as a hobby.’

Mary Rand, (née Bignal) MBE, was the first Female British Athlete to win an Olympic Gold Medal.

            Whilst still at school, the young Mary excelled at sports but was especially outstanding at High Jump, Long Jump and Hurdles.  In 1956, she was a guest of the Olympic squad at a training camp in Brighton, later setting a national British record of points in a pentathlon at the age of just 17.

            Mary’s first Olympic outing was Rome 1960, where she finished 4^th in the 80m hurdles.  She also finished 9^th in the Long Jump, despite setting a British record in the qualifying round.

            Then came the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, where Mary Rand set an Olympic record in the Long Jump, (which would be broken exactly four years later) earning her a Gold Medal, the first ever won by a female British athlete.  She also took home a silver for the pentathlon, as well as a bronze as part of the 4x100 metres relay.  This also made her the only British female athlete to win three medals at one Olympic Games.

            Mary Rand also trained as an athlete during the sixties, when there was none of the big sponsorship deals that are given to athletes now.  As well as training to become the best in her field, she also had to hold down a job in a Guinness factory, in-between raising her family.  She usually worked an eight-hour shift before completing a two-hour round trip to her training ground. The fact that she did all of that, and still managed to win medals and break records, should be an inspiration to all hopeful athletes of the future.

            In 1964, Mary Rand was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year.  Then in 1965, she was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the New Year’s Honours List.  She was finally inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.