MARY RAND, one of Britain’s most successful sports stars, has died at the age of 86.
The Somerset-born star was an inspirational Golden Girl for a generation of track-and-field fans in the Swinging Sixties.
Mary Rand won Olympic gold in 1964 in the long jumpCredit: Times Newspapers Ltd
Rand also excelled at the high jump and running the hurdlesCredit: Times Newspapers Ltd
Rand also won bronze in the European Championships as part of the 4x100m relayCredit: Times Newspapers Ltd
It was at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics where Rand, then a 24-year-old mum, claimed the long jump title with a world record leap of 6.76 metres, which was achieved on a wet runway and with a headwind.
That victory came on October 14 – six days before Ann Packer claimed 800 metres glory – and means Rand holds the distinction of being Team GB’s first female Olympic athletics champion.
Only 10 British women have won Olympic gold in an athletics event, with Paris 2024 reigning 800 metres champion being the latest winner in colours.
Rand’s result made amends for the failure at the Rome 1960 Games when she fouled with two of her three jumps and came ninth overall in the final.
That is despite a qualifying mark of 6.33 metres which would have been good enough to have placed her behind Vera Kolashnikova of the Soviet Union on the podium.
The trip to Japan 62 years ago also saw her claim silver in the women’s pentathlon – Soviet Union’s multi-talented athlete Irina Press was the overall champion – and bronze in the 4×100 metres relay.
Until Welsh cyclist Emma Finucane in 2024, Rand was the only British woman to bag three medals at a single Games.
It was no surprise that come the end of 1964, the British public voted blonde-haired Rand – once described as ‘Marilyn Monroe on spikes’ – as the Sports Personality of the Year, ahead of speedway rider Barry Briggs and Packer in third .
Two years after her Tokyo exploits, she was crowned long jump champion at the Games in Kingston, an upgrade on the silver she clinched in Cardiff in 1958.
These pictures are of Rand training in 1994, some thirty years after her gold medal primeCredit: Times Newspapers Ltd
Rand also won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 1964Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd
At European level, she added two bronzes, in the long jump and sprint relay, to her CV during a trip to Belgrade in 1962.
Retirement from the sport came after she failed to make the 1968 Olympics team in Mexico City due to injury.
A mark of 12.22 metres in the triple jump was classed as an unofficial world record between 1959 and 1981 as the discipline was not recognised by the governing body until a decade later.
Her fame spread through the decade and Rolling Stone lead man once nominated her as his dream date in a pop magazine.
Until 1961, she competed as Mary Bignal before marrying rower Sid Rand – they had one daughter together – in a marriage that lasted five years.
Rand was married twice more after that – to American Bill Toomey, the 1968 Olympics decathlon champion, with whom she had two daughters and then latterly to John Reese.
She lived in California in the United States and held dual UK/US citizenship.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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