Thelma Elizabeth Hopkins (16 March 1936 – 10 January 2025) was a Northern Irish athlete who competed in the high jump and the long jump. She won the high jump silver medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and was European champion in 1954.

Biography

Hopkins was born in Kingston upon Hull but grew up in Belfast as a child; she had one older sister.[1]

Hpkins finished third behind Dorothy Tyler in the high jump event at the 1952 WAAA Championships.[2]

At both the 1953 WAAA Championships and 1954 WAAA Championships she was defeated by Sheila Lerwill in the high jump competition.[3]

In the 1954 Commonwealth Games she won a gold medal for Northern Ireland in high jump.[4] Later that year, she got the gold medal in high jump for Great Britain at the 1954 European Athletics Championships.[5]

Hopkins became a double British champion in 1955, winning the national high jump title and national long jump title at the 1955 WAAA Championships.[6]

On 5 May 1956, Hopkins set a new world high jump record with a leap of 1.74 metres in Belfast, erasing the mark of 1.73 metres set by Aleksandra Chudina of the USSR on 22 May 1954. Her record was broken on 14 July 1956 in Bucharest by Iolanda Balaș of Romania.[7] Olympic gold medallist Mary Peters called Hopkins her "inspiration".[1] Coached by Franz Stampfl,[1] she competed for Great Britain in the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia in high jump , where she jointly won the silver medal with Mariya Pisareva.[8]

Hopkins completed another double of national championships when winning the 80 metres hurdles and high jump at the 1957 WAAA Championships.[9][10]

As well as athletics she excelled at hockey where she was a regular choice for the Ireland women's national field hockey team, playing at forward and winning 40 caps.[5] She also represented Ireland as an international squash player.[5]

She was one of many signatories in a letter to The Times on 17 July 1958 opposing 'the policy of apartheid' in international sport and defending 'the principle of racial equality which is embodied in the Declaration of the Olympic Games'.[11][12]

Hopkins moved to Canada,[5] where she died on 10 January 2025, at the age of 88 in Edmonton.[13]

Her achievement in breaking the world record is commemorated by a plaque erected by Belfast City Council in 2006 in Cherryvale Playing Fields, South Belfast.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "'A wonderful athlete': Tributes paid to Northern Ireland's Olympic high jump silver medallist Thelma Hopkins". BelfastTelegraph.co.uk. 14 January 2025. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  2. ^ "Dorothy Tyler changes style and shocks world champion". Sunday Express. 15 June 1952. Retrieved 15 February 2025 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. ^ "AAA, WAAA and National Championships Medallists". National Union of Track Statisticians. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  4. ^ "Empire Games". The Age. 5 August 1954. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  5. ^ a b c d Weekly, Athletics (17 January 2025). "Olympic high jump medallist Thelma Hopkins dies aged 88". AW. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  6. ^ "Margaret Doubles To It - Loses Record". The People. 3 July 1955. Retrieved 19 February 2025 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  7. ^ "World Records for High Jump (Women)". World Records. Cleave Books. Retrieved 19 February 2008.
  8. ^ "Athletics at the 1956 Melbourne Summer Games: Women's High Jump | Olympics at Sports-Reference.com". 17 April 2020. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  9. ^ "Schoolgirls Jolt Olympic Jump Star". Weekly Dispatch (London). 7 July 1957. Retrieved 19 February 2025 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  10. ^ "AAA Championships (women)". GBR Athletics. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  11. ^ Brown and Hogsbjerg, Apartheid is not a game, 16
  12. ^ Brown, Geoff; Hogsbjerg, Christian (2020). Apartheid is not a Game: Remembering the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign. London: Redwords. ISBN 9781912926589.
  13. ^ "Olympic high jump silver medallist Hopkins dies". BBC. Retrieved 14 January 2025.
Records
Preceded by Women's High Jump British Record Holder
5 May 1956 – 15 August 1964 		Succeeded by
Allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Hopkins_(athlete)
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