Anita Lonsbrough

Medal record
Women's swimming
Competitor for  Great Britain
Olympic Games
Gold	1960 Rome	200 m breaststroke
European Championships
Gold	1962 Leipzig	200 m breaststroke
Silver	1958 Budapest	200 m breaststroke
Silver	1962 Leipzig	400 m individual medley
Bronze	1958 Budapest	4×100 m medley
Bronze	1962 Leipzig	4×100 m medley
Competitor for  England
British Empire and Commonwealth Games
Gold	1958 Cardiff	220 yd breaststroke
Gold	1958 Cardiff	4×110 yd medley
Gold	1962 Perth	220 yd breaststroke
Gold	1962 Perth	440 yd individual medley
Silver	1962 Perth	4×110 yd medley

Anita Lonsbrough MBE (born 10 August 1941 in York^[1]) is a former swimmer from Great Britain who won a gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics.

Swimming career

At the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff she won gold in the 220 yards breaststroke and the medley relay.

At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, on 27 August 1960, at the age of 19, she won gold in the 200 m breaststroke in 2:49.5 ahead of West Germany's Wiltrud Urselmann (2:50.0), setting a new world record time. She was one of only two GB gold medallists that year, the other being Don Thompson in the 50 kilometre walk.

She would also be the last British woman to win Olympic gold in swimming until Rebecca Adlington gained the gold in the 2008 Summer Olympics, 48 years later.^[2]

At the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth she won three golds: 110 yards breaststroke; 220 yards breaststroke; and 440 yards individual medley.

At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo she came seventh in the 400 m individual medley

Biography

Lonsbrough was a Treasurer's Office clerk employed at the Huddersfield Town Hall. She won her first gold medal for swimming in the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff. Five world records and seven gold medals followed until her retirement in 1964. At one time she held the Olympic, Empire and European titles at the same time.

She currently is a sports commentator and journalist for The Daily Telegraph, under the name Anita Lonsbrough-Porter. She is married to cycling commentator and former leading British professional track cyclist Hugh Porter; they met travelling to Tokyo for the 1964 Summer Olympics and married in 1965.^[3][4]

Honours

Anita Lonsbrough was the first female flag bearer for Great Britain at the Summer Games when she carried the flag in the opening ceremony of the 1964 Summer Olympics. She was the first woman winner of BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1962.

She was awarded an MBE in 1963 for services to swimming.

In 1983 she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

See also

• Swimming at the 1960 Summer Olympics

References

External links