Mary Peters

Medal record
Women's Athletics
Competitor for  Great Britain
Olympic Games
Gold	1972 Munich	Pentathlon

Dame Mary Elizabeth Peters, DBE, DL (born 6 July 1939) is a former British athlete, competing mainly in the pentathlon and shot put.

Biography

Mary Peters was born in Halewood, Lancashire, but moved to Ballymena (and later Belfast) at age eleven when her father's job was relocated to Northern Ireland. ^[1] She now lives in Lisburn just outside Belfast.^[2]

As a teenager, her father encouraged her athletic career by building her home practice facilities as birthday gifts. She qualified as a teacher and worked while training. In the approach to the Munich Olympics, her training was made more difficult by the IRA bombing campaign then going on in Belfast.^[1]

In the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich Peters won the gold medal in the women's pentathlon, having finished 4th in 1964 and 9th in 1968. To win the gold medal, she narrowly beat the local favourite, Germany's Heide Rosendahl, by 10 points, setting a world record score. After her victory, death threats were phoned in to the BBC: "Mary Peters is a protestant and has won a medal for Britain. An attempt will be made on her life and it will be blamed on the IRA ... Her home will be going up in the near future." but Peters insisted she would return home to Belfast. She was greeted by fans and a band at the airport and paraded through the city streets, but was not allowed back in her flat for three months. Turning down jobs in the U.S. and Australia, where her father lived, she insisted on remaining in Northern Ireland.^[1]

She represented Northern Ireland at every Commonwealth Games between 1958 and 1974. In these games she won 2 gold medals for the pentathlon, plus a gold and silver medal for the shot put.

She was appointed CBE in 1990, having been appointed MBE in 1972. In 2000 she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the year in which Denise Lewis won gold in the women's multi-discipline event, now the heptathlon.

She became a Trustee of The Outward Bound Trust in May 2001 and is Vice President of the Northern Ireland Outward Bound Association. Dame Mary is also Patron of Springhill Hospice in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

Northern Ireland's premier athletics track, on the outskirts of Belfast, is called the Mary Peters Track in her honour. In April 2009 she was named the Lord Lieutenant of the City of Belfast.^[2]

References

External links

• Mary Peters Track, Belfast (picture)
• Northern Irish Athletics website, entry for Mary Peters
• BBC biography
• Dame Mary Peters' curriculum vitae

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