#Latest news with #ThelmaHopkinsTimes29-04-2025SportTimesThelma Hopkins obituary: high jump world-record holder in 1950sBefore Dick Fosbury revolutionised high jumping in 1968 with his back-flip 'Fosbury Flop', competitors would launch themselves headfirst at the bar and land with a thud. This is what Thelma Hopkins — a 5ft 5in, 20-year-old British pocket projectile — did when she broke the world record in 1956 with a leap of 1.74m at a small varsity meeting in Belfast. She lost the record two months later when the Romanian Iolanda Balas jumped 1.75m. Not to be outdone, Hopkins beat her 6ft rival at the Melbourne Olympics to win a silver medal and become the poster girl of British women's athletics. It had said much for her natural competitiveness that when she came fourth in the high jump at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952
Times29-04-2025SportTimesThelma Hopkins obituary: high jump world-record holder in 1950sBefore Dick Fosbury revolutionised high jumping in 1968 with his back-flip 'Fosbury Flop', competitors would launch themselves headfirst at the bar and land with a thud. This is what Thelma Hopkins — a 5ft 5in, 20-year-old British pocket projectile — did when she broke the world record in 1956 with a leap of 1.74m at a small varsity meeting in Belfast. She lost the record two months later when the Romanian Iolanda Balas jumped 1.75m. Not to be outdone, Hopkins beat her 6ft rival at the Melbourne Olympics to win a silver medal and become the poster girl of British women's athletics. It had said much for her natural competitiveness that when she came fourth in the high jump at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952
29-04-2025
