Greatest British female Athlete ever?

On what grounds?

Last week my wife caught me in bed with Fatima Whitbread.
"It's not what it looks like," I pleaded.
"Well, what is it then?" she asked with a puzzled look on her face.
"A woman," I replied.

In fairness to Fatty she won plenty of medals throughout the 80's

She did indeed. I wouldn't want to decry her achievements, but one could argue that she wasn't even the best British javelin thrower of her own era.

Maureen Flowers

very good bb, and certainly one of the prettiest ;)

she loved to hammer the lipstick 24/7

Maybe Kathy Smallwood if it hadn't been for the DDR?

Sally Gunnell just edges it over Christine Ohuruogu for me.

She competed in 1984  when the USSR and DDR didn't turn up

Why would she be considered the superior of say Jessica Ennis?

Kathy Smallwood^

Can't really be having Gunnell - a moderate 100m hurdler who moved up to a pretty new event to make her mark.

And Ohorogu, whatever her excuses, is tainted.

Both all-time British greats though, for sure.

how good was Mary Peters? can't remember her that well myself

Did Lorraine Baker get a mention ?

Can't really be having Gunnell - a moderate 100m hurdler who moved up to a pretty new event to make her mark.

400H a new event ? Ok, I'm sure you're right.

It was pretty new degs I think. I will check.

From wikipedia, degs.

The first documented 400 m hurdles race for women took place in 1971. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) introduced the event officially as a discipline in 1974, although it was not run at the Olympics until 1984, the first World Champion having been crowned the year before at the inaugural IAAF World Championships in Athletics.

has to be Jess for me. Greatest all round athlete in the world at both world champs and olympics is pretty astonishing. A shame she didn't take part this week as think she'd have won even tho not 100% fit.

I have had a re-think. I am prepared to place Ennis alongside KSC in joint second.

I think you'll all agree that's pretty big of me.

The problem with Paula is that she never medalled at an olympics. Undoubtedly an amazing athlete but for that reason i couldn't have her top.

ALLISON FISHER

I played Alison Fisher at pool a few times.  And Karen Corr.

A phenomenon indeed abito. Even as a snooker and pool diehard though, I find it impossible to make the case for cueists as athletes.

Does the name LOTTIE DOD no longer fill every British sporting man's heart with pride and longing?

A very clever decision to move to America for Alison and Karen, they make an excellent living.

Anyone who thinks Jess is the best is wrong. She isn't even the best heptathlete of her generation. That Swedish bird that doesn't bother competing anymore would stuff her if she could be bothered (she's fitter as well too).

Indeed they do PM - a afriend of mine that I used to play snooker with in North London spends his time travelling around America rinsing 9-Ball comps.

I have taken the liberty of sending you a private message.

cubanpete, point taken about Kluft, but I fail to see how it affects Ennis's standing in relation to other British athletes, that a Swede was or is better than her.

You are right of course asparagus. That's why I said mostly.

Good afternoon, Jed.  I've replied, sir.

Cubanpete, Jess can only beat who is put in front of her. In any case you could argue that none of the british female athletes were the best in the world of their generation.

the new wave of 400 metre hurdlers are a lot fitter than Gunnell.

Gunnell was the best of her generation (and the best of all time at the time). She was Olympic champion, World champion and world record holder. No other British female athlete in my time compares to that. Ratcliffe comes close, but the lack of an olympic gold counts against her.

Rachael Heyhoe Flint

Still Lillian Board for me.

Nothing will ever beat her final leg on the 4 x 400 in the 1969 European Championships.

Tragic aa, absolutely heartbreaking.

Just can't have a 400m hurdler as our best ever athlete. It's for people who aren't quick enough to run 400m flat. the world record was also much easier to break because it was a relatively new event. Ohorougu for example is in an event where the world record is off the scale due to systematic drug abuse of athletes in the 1970's.

Christine O on the grounds that she was decent enough, then served a ban for doping offences, came back a world beater and nothing is said about it.

Geoff Capes

is this w/o princess anne and zara

Princesse Anjou, the reason nothing is said about it is because absolutely everyone who knows anything about it knows she is a clean athlete and always has been.

No votes for Rhian 'The Lily of Llanelli' Edwards ?

Oh So Sharp

Kelly's double gold not too shabby..

dont know what else can be asked of Jessica Ennis,

Olympic Gold
World championship gold
European Championship Gold
World Indoor Gold

British Heptathlon record holder,(5th best of all time)
British 100m hurdle record holder
British High jump record holder

and more to come aged 27

one point on the swedish heptathlon girl, she retired a year ago, but its not so much that she is miles better than ennis, her personal bests in the hurdles, 200 and 800m are better than Klufts, equal on the high jump, but inferior pb's to klufts shot put, long jump and javelin,being 5ft 5 doesnt help tho

I'm sorry asparagus, but I don't agree with you. She has served a ban for drugs-related offences, end of story. I make no distinction between British athletes who have felt the wrath of WADA, and foreign ones.

She was extremely fortunate that the powers-that-be were weak enough to rescind her Olympic ban.

If we are not restricting the word "athlete" to athletics it must be
Beryl Burton who dominated women’s cycle racing in the UK, winning more than 90 domestic championships and seven world titles, and setting numerous national records.
She set a women's record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men's record for two years.

English Gardner!!!

She just missed out on a medal in the 100m finals yesterday but she's really fit and great!!!

gunnell was a 100m hurdler who didn't have the sprint speed for that and tried her hand at the 400. sure she ran the 100 hurdles at the 86 commonwealth games

Your case for Burton is rock-solid bix, and her achievements make one sit up and go "Wow," but I did mean Track and Field when I started the thread, it's hard enough comparing eras in a certain field for me without adding cross-discipline comparisons to the equation.

I'm still stuck on Radcliffe, with Ennis and KSC not far behind. It's funny, but none of them have ever elicited the reaction in me that Kelly Holmes did when she hit the front for her second Olympic gold medal, nor the pleasure when she crossed the line in front. I was on holiday at the time, in Avignon, and my insistence, in less than perfect French, that the TV in the bar be turned over for her race was met with typically Gallic disdain. My uncontrolled mania when she won nearly broke the Entente Cordiale.

A pleasing list. Very hard to compare, but I think I agree with the OP. There are a lot of female marathon runners (although like the 400m hurdles it's relatively new for them), it's not a sport the Brits have proven that strong in, and she was undoubtedly the best in the world for a sustained period of time.

With cheating Eastern Europeans KSC would have done a lot more, her achievements were remarkable at the time, but it's hard to compare. Jessica Ennis is the best in the world, and damn tastey, and good enough at at least one event to compete in that, but there just aren't that many competitors our there for her to beat.

I agree also about Gunnell, she was a decent hurdler, but only became a world beater after switching to an event with much less competition. Akabusi did something similar.

Kelly Holmes the greatest for one week, for sure.

Haven't really added anything, have I? Liz McColgan worthy of a mention.

You may not have added much sparky, but you touch upon a matter of great importance. Mrs Ennis-Hill is indeed most delectable, and should gain further merit points for that fact alone. Again though, KSC is her equal - those lovely long legs would certainly have made her the greatest athlete if the thrill of having them wrapped around one's neck were to be taken into account.

As such, I reject your inclusion of the relatively homely Miss McColgan, and suggest a small interest in the very promising Katarina Johnson-Thompson. She may yet become the leader of the pack, in all the most important ways.

Lillian Board

Katarina Johnson-Thompson? Well fair enough, if I'd known we were including the disableds. I've got that right haven't I?

Liz McColgan's daughter raced today. With enough buckfast she'd probably get it.

Radcliffe or Ennis for me. 

Board and KSC before my time.

Ann Packer,Lillian Board,Mary Rand,Mary Peters,Jessica Ennis,Kelly Holmes

Board and Packer for unfulfilled potential rather than absolute achievement. Ann Packer -- wins Olympic Gold then retires at 22. Lillian Board died from cancer with the world seemingly at her feet.

The problem with Jessica Ennis (and Mary Peters and Daley Thompson, come to that) is that their disciplines are about being very good at lots of events rather than excelling at one.

Kelly Holmes crossing the line was inspirational but she was injured for most of her career. She was great when it mattered.

Radcliffe is the anti-Holmes: best in the world for years except when it really mattered in the Olympics.

This is too hard. And it is sobering that I can think of no British women in athletics before the mid-60s.

Pre mid-60's there wasn't an awful lot of womens athletics at all I think - certainly at the Olympics. Some folk have mentioned about the 400H being a "new event", but even the flat 400 didn't come into the Olympics until 1964, the 800 in 1960, the 1500 in 1972 (guess who's been on wikipedia). Other events like 5K and 10K were much later.

True, @Degs. People talked about the flood of Chinese women's world records a decade or so back and while they were doubtless drug-enhanced, the truth is you'd expect a lot of success just by throwing millions of bodies at events that previously had very few participants.

Though Fanny Blankers-Koen won four Golds in 1948 and she must have been running against someone.

Though Fanny Blankers-Koen won four Golds in 1948 and she must have been running against someone.

Sure - but it was all sprints 100/200/80H and 4x100 relay. Seems like 200m was the longest distance women did at that time.

and while I'm rambling on, moving up from sprint hurdles to 400H is not an uncommon progression. I think Hemery, Akii-Bua and Moses all did that (and Alan Pascoe). Hemery even went back to sprint hurdles for a while after 1968.

slightly unfair criticism of Thompson and Ennis, Ramruma (would n't know enough about Peters' performances).

Ennis is a world class hurdler and may well have won a medal if she'd competed in 100m hurdles at last year's Olympics.

Thompson was a regular in the 4 x 100m relay team and I think Britain's best long jumper for at least part of his career.

KJT looks to have the potential to be a world class long jumper also.

The world class multi-eventers do tend to excel at some of their events.

Jed.davison, I'm not sure if you know any of the details of the Ohorougu case but if you do you will know she was without doubt a clean athlete at the time of her ban. Even the governing body emphasised this. She has been very unfairly maligned. She served her time, indeed a much longer ban than should have been the case, but she was undoubtedly clean and I'm sure still is.

jed.,Prior to opening your thread the first 2 names which came into my head were Paula R. and Lillian B.Thinking about it the only others whom I would consider would be little Jess and Kelly.Whilst leaning towards Jess it has to be Paula for me.Watching her close up at cross-country she is awesome.

Are you involved with Athletics,or just a fan,if I may ask?

Although I have played several sports iamajambo, a couple to a very high standard, I am no athlete. My father was an English schools Champion sprinter and long-jumper in the 1950s, and through him I became obsessed with track and field from a very young age - my first hero, believe it or not, was the great Tanzanian Filbert Bayi. Obviously I was then glued to the developing careers of Coe and Ovett.

I must confess to a long-term and possibly terminal disillusionment with the sport because of the pernicious influence of drugs, which is why I have been so stern in my condemnation of Christine Ohoruogu on this thread. She should not have been allowed to compete for Great Britain at an Olympics in my opinion - I don't care how absent-minded you are, in fact you can be the ditziest woman in the world, but if you are an aspiring Olympian, then you know the rules. Perhaps she could have been forgiven one missed test, but three?

My own view, given that this is a thread about female athletes, is that all the Women's world records in track and field should be expunged. It is widely accepted both within the sport and by passionate and informed observers that of the current records in either sphere, only Tirunesh Dibaba's 5000m record is beyond suspicion, along with the technical events like Pole Vault etc....

I also believe strongly that any drug offence should mean a lifetime ban. It baffles me that the sport can allow Justin Gatlin - to name but one example - to continue to stain its name.

paula racliffe cannot be considered, she was really unlucky with injury but without a olympic gold and just 1 world championship gold is that enough? not to mention jessica ennis is a multi talented athlete, radcliff skill set it limited to one motion, running

I'm a Kathy Cook fan but surely Dorothy Hyman deserves a mention!
3 Olympic medals and a hatful of Euro/Commonwealth medals.

Kathy Cook by a distance imo. 

Still the GB record holder at 200m
Holds the fastest wind adjusted time for a GB girl over 100m
Just lost the GB record over 400m

She was robbed of a handful of global medals by systematic cheating by drugged up Eastern Europeans and particulary Eastern Europeans.

Bearing in mind she specialised over 200m, she would have gone even faster over 400m had it not been for the event being dominated by the disgraced Marita Koch and Jarmila Kratochblokeava, whom she had no chance of beating.

@AyersRock -- it is true Paula Radcliffe has disappointed at the Olympics but she is still the world record holder, and has run four of the five fastest ever times (it says on wikipedia). She is certainly a contender.

ANITA LONSBOROUGH SWIMMER AND MARY PETERS

Kathy Cook was the GB equivalent of Usain Bolt.  Just competed when cheating was at its absolute peak and most blatant.

Gunnell or Ennis

Paula Radcliffe without doubt.

She was competing when British athletics was in the doldrums and her marathon record is in a completely different class to any other woman in history.

If the 2004 Olympics were in a more suitable climate she would have waltzed to an Olympic gold

she holds the top 3 marathon times, 2 in her home city, nice to have your home crowd cheering you on

i agree she was one of the very best runners, and it it werent for injury would no doubt have won Olympic gold, but she didnt, so not sure how she can be called teh greatest female british athlete

Her best time is 2m 55s faster than any other woman has ever run. This is absolutely extraordinary - she finishes more than half a mile in front of the next best athlete ever at the distance.

Regardless of her myriad track achievements and records, this marathon time alone makes her the greatest, imo of course.

Jess ennis was not just average at seven events.  She has the GB record at high jump(remarkable given her height) and 100m hurdles.  This is remarkable given there must be people who are devoting their life to these events and she can, in theory, only dedicte one seventh of her training to rhese events.  Her time in the hurdles last year would have won her gold in 2008.

zola bud was a good un

Radcliffe for me - unbelievably bad luck when it came to Olympic games, but she was recognised world wide as the best distance runner of her generation. Sydney came too soon, and when she was top of the tree events conspired against her - everyone wants to peak at the Olympics but sometimes it just doesn't happen

sorry i'm in the school that says winning an olympic gold medal doesn't necessarily make you a great athlete (greg rutherford for example) but you can't be considered a great athlete without one. same goes for tennis players and golfers with regard to the majors

generally, I would agree with you. There are lots of examples of people like Radcliffe though, who were robbed of their chance through injury or ill fortune. For top level athletes injury is a constant concern, and its unfair not to be taken into account

I agree with you mafeking re: tennisers and golfers, but one should note that for every one chance an athlete has to win an Olympic Gold, they have sixteen to win a slam or major.

that's a valid point but it's a black mark against radcliffe. colin jackson in the same boat. made a right mess of it in barcelona when hot favourite

i admit it is harsh cos you may only get one realistic chance when at your peak

didn't even look on 1st reply on here, and said to myself lilian board,i was very young kid and recall walking with mum when she said the sad news about lillianback in the 70s

Christine oh, just look at her if you cant see steroid abuse in her, then god help us

Oh So Sharp ...though she was Irish, apparently...

Still Paula.

Mary Rand by a country mile!

Was LOVIN' the comment about OH SO SHARP then I saw it was me wot wroted it!

The greatest love of all......is happenin' to me...!

Paula is well dodgy..that wr by over two minutes was fishier than a fishy fish..imo.

Paula is clean. The WR was assisted by having male pacemakers

Unless the male pacemakers were picking her up and carrying her I'd say it was mainly assisted by autologous transfusions as indicated by independent review of her stored samples

Athletics, in particular, is replete with individual PBs that have been attained in fast races, not necessarily won by the individual in question.

Jet from Gladiators..............'Jet you will go on my whistle'

Jess Ennis. World champion 3 times (the 3rd one not long after having a child), Olympic champion once and a close 2nd another time, British records at high jump and 100m hurdles. Surely now must be considered the greatest British female athlete.
Paula an amazing athlete and almost certainly clean but didn't get enough medals in major championships to be rated above Jess (even though her world record is fantastic)

Radcliffe for me - her World record a staggering achievement, and is arguably the greatest British athletic feat of all time, regardless of sex

May 31, 2017 -- 3:24PM, Velasquez wrote:

Was LOVIN' the comment about OH SO SHARP then I saw it was me wot wroted it! The greatest love of all......is happenin' to me...!

Leopard Crags - 1940's Heptathlete

FatherMaguire..if something seems too good to be true.....we will agree to differ.

To be a great female athlete you have to be beating the blokes.
So Sarah Rowell.

with or without drugs. I suspect quite a few of dabbling.
blood doping. steroids.