Geoff Capes

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.

Oh So Sharp

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

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.

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

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.

Lillian Board

Radcliffe or Ennis for me. 

Board and KSC before my time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

@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.

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

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

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.

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