Gold, Silver, and Bronze

[Double R Bar]

Happy birthday today (Wednesday) to an athlete who owns gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals.

This athletle won all three medals in the same Olympic Games with a world record in winning the gold medal!

In their first Olympics, this birthday athlete didn't do very well, however in their second Games it was a different story (three medals).

Our birthday athlete turns 70 years old today (Wednesday).

The first athlete to reach an athletic plateau in their nation, this person married two Olympians (both marriages ending in divorce).

In setting a world record to win the Olympic gold medal, our birthday athlete was the first to pass a world plateau.

This world mark was broken by another athlete in the next Olympic Games.

Do you have enough clues to figure out who this famous Olympic champion with a Februrary 10th birthday is?

[slowcat]

Mary Rand

[Double R Bar]

Nice job, slowcat. Today is Mary Rand's 70th birthday. Of course, she won the gold medal in Tokyo way back in 1964. Her winning leap was a world record and the first for a woman over 22 feet.

She also was the first lady from Great Britain to jump over 20 feet and many thought she might win the gold medal in Rome. She actually led all qualifiers to the Rome final (1960), but only finished ninth in that final.

What is pretty amazing to me is that when she won in Tokyo and set her world record (6.76) it was in the fifth round and into a huge headwind of 1.69!

By the way, her silver medal in Tokyo was in the Pentathlon and her bronze medal came in the four by 100 relay where she ran the second leg. Poland won that relay from the U.S.

Here's an interesting question from that Tokyo four by 100 relay for the women: The U.S. team was credited with a world record of 43.9 even though Poland won the race in 43.6. Poland is still recognized as the Olympic champions in the race, but not credited with the world record. How is this?

[rson]

Tokyo 4x100 women's relay

Poland's Eva Klobukowska ran afoul of the gender police.Retained bothj that medal and the silver from the individual 100.

[Daisy]

Interesting quote from Ann Packer that i found on wikipedia.

Mary was the most gifted athlete I ever saw. She was as good as athletes get, there has never been anything like her since. And I don't believe there ever will.

I had never really heard anything about her marriages before. A lot of American interest in that department. Again from wikipedia:

She met oarsman Sid Rand in 1961. Three days after meeting she agreed to marry him and they married five weeks later. They had a daughter, Alison. The marriage lasted five years.

In December 1969, she married her second husband, American Bill Toomey, the 1968 Olympics' decathlon champion. This marriage lasted 22 years and they had two daughters, Samantha and Sarah.

She later married John Reese and she lives with him in Atascadero in the United States. She now holds joint UK/US citizenship.

Did her daughters with Toomey ever compete?

[Double R Bar]

Very good, rson, however Ewa Klobukowska was third in the women's 100 in Tokyo (Edith McGuire was the silver). Klobukowsak was the anchor on the Polish relay team in 1964 and two years later she was disqualified when she failed a sex chromosome test. I believe she was unaware of her maleness and that's why the IOC allowed Poland to keep the gold medal in the relay, but the IAAF kept the world record with the U.S. team in second place.

P.S. I don't know if Bill's daughters ever competed or not.

[Daisy]

I just noticed I missed the Bill Toomey birthday thread last month.

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/discus ... p?p=621658

From that thread:

Toomey and Mary Rand and Russ Hodge all trained at UCSB in the late 1960's. Mary impressed me a lot more than either Bill or Russ. In the weight room, she was the strongest woman I'd ever been around and drop dead beautiful AND a personable, congenial lady. Really a class person in all ways.

[bambam]

Here's our bio on Rand on Olympedia:



After finishing second in the English Schools long jump in 1955, Mary Bignall accepted a sports scholarship to Millfield School, where she developed her precocious talents. In 1957, as a 17-year-old schoolgirl, she set an English record in her first ever pentathlon competition and later in the season made her international debut as a high jumper.

In 1958, after leaving Millfield, she joined the London Olympiads AC and finished second in the long jump at the Commonwealth Games. In the pentathlon at the European Championships, although finishing no higher than seventh, she posted a new British record of 4,466 points. In 1959 she became the first British woman long jumper to clear 20 feet, with a new-British record of 20-4 (6.20m), and improved her pentathlon record to 4679 points.

In May 1960 Bignall added another inch to her British long jump record and a gold medal at the Rome Olympics in August seemed a distinct possibility. Hopes were raised further when she led the qualifiers in Rome at 6.33 (20-9¼) but things went drastically wrong in the final. She ran through the pit on her first two attempts and a half-hearted last jump left her back in ninth place with a performance more than a foot behind her qualifying jump. Although she finished fourth in the 80 metres hurdles, the Rome Olympics were a stunning disappointment.

Fortunately she had the character to put this setback behind her and produced some superlative performances during the four years she had to wait before getting a second chance of Olympic honors. After the Rome Games she married the Olympic oarsman Sidney Rand, and only four months after the birth of their daughter, Mary Rand was winning bronze medals in the long jump and the relay at the 1962 European Championships. In 1963 she twice improved both her British long jump and pentathlon records and after bettering each record again in the summer of 1964, she went to Tokyo in October to try again for Olympic gold.

As in Rome four years earlier, Mary Rand led the qualifiers, but this time there were no mistakes in the final. With her first jump she set a new Olympic and British record, improving on this with her fourth jump, and on her fifth she virtually put the gold medal beyond the reach of her rivals with a new world record of 6.76 (22-2¼). To crown this wonderful performance, she won a silver medal in the pentathlon and completed her set of Olympic medals with a bronze in the relay.

She carried on competing for the next three seasons, winning the Commonwealth long jump title in 1966, but injury prevented her from making the Olympic team for a third time in 1968 and she announced her retirement. Her marriage to Sidney Rand ended in divorce and in 1969 she married the 1968 Olympic decathlon champion Bill Toomey, but this marriage was also subsequently dissolved.

Personal Bests: 200 – 24.1 (1963); 80H – 10.8 (1963); HJ – 1.72 (1964); LJ – 6.76 (1964); Pen – 5035 (1964).

[Vault-emort]

I loved the references to Mary Rand in Mary Peters' bio.

She told the story (I'm paraphrasing from memory):

'Mary would have been world-class in any sport. She was a fine tennis player as well. At one promotional event where sports personalities were having a go on a trampoline, a few of us had a bounce and then got off before we made fools of ourselves. Mary jumped on and gave a performance worthy of the British gymnastics team.

In a darts competition on TV, there was a prize of a set of solid gold darts for the first darts player to hit a bullseye. As Olympic champion, Mary was to open the event by throwing a dart. She took aim and immediately hit the bullseye, winning the golden darts for herself.

[mump boy]

mary rand is the one person i want to meet more than anyone else

[Flumpy]

Re: Gold, Silver, and Bronze

Me too. I've just been looking up Atascadero to see if we can go and stalk her. Unfortunately I don't see us being in California anytime soon.

Maybe we should start with Ann Packer and Kathy Cook.