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Dorothy Tyler, a high jumping legend

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British athletics is mourning the death of one its greatest stalwarts, the high jumper Dorothy Tyler.

Tyler, 94, held a unique position in the sport in the country because she was the first British woman to win an Olympic medal in athletics with her silver at the Games in Berlin in 1936.

Competing then under her single name of Dorothy Odam, three years later in May 1939 she went on to break the world record when she jumped 1.66m in Brentwood, Essex.

By the time of the next Olympics in 1948 after the end of World War II, Tyler was on the podium again when she won silver once more.

During her career she twice gold at the British Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games) in Sydney in 1938 and Auckland in 1950 and silver in Vancouver in 1954.

Recalling her success in Berlin in an interview with insidecroydon.com, Tyler talked of the technique which brought her success.

She said: 'I didn’t even measure my run up. I just picked a spot, ran and jumped over the bar. It was just something I did.'

No British woman has matched her success at the Olympic high jump and she remained very much part of the sport.

In 2009, she was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame and in 2012 she was the official starter of the London Marathon.

European Athletics would like to pass on its condolences to Dorothy’s family at this sad time.




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