Northern Eire athlete additionally received Empire Video games and European gold and held the world document
Thelma Hopkins, the 1956 Olympic excessive leap silver medallist and 1954 European and Empire Video games champion, died on January 10 aged 88.
Born in Kingston Upon Hull, she moved to Belfast in Northern Eire as a toddler earlier than later residing in Canada for a few years.
In 1954 she received excessive leap gold and lengthy leap silver when representing Northern Eire on the Empire Video games in Vancouver – the forerunner to the Commonwealth Video games.
Later in the identical summer season, she received the excessive leap title for Britain on the European Championships in Bern.
Hopkins broke the excessive leap world document on Might 5 in 1956 with 1.74m on the Cherryvale Enjoying Fields in Belfast and 6 months later received Olympic silver in Melbourne, sharing the runner-up place with Mariya Pisareva of the Soviet Union, because the duo completed behind winner Mildred McDaniel of the US.
Hopkins additionally performed hockey for Eire, incomes 40 caps, along with representing the nation in squash.
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