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| Full name | Abigail Hoffman | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | November 11, 1946 Toronto, Ontario |
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| Country | Canada | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Abigail ("Abby") Hoffman, OC (born February 11, 1947) is a former Canadian track and field athlete.
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Born in Toronto, she first learned to skate when she was three. When she was nine, she wanted to play ice hockey, however there were no leagues for girls in the Toronto area. She cut her hair and registered her name as 'Ab Hoffman' in the boy's league. When it was discovered she was a girl, she was no longer allowed to play. Her parents took the case to the Ontario Supreme Court and the story was covered by Time Magazine and Newsweek.[1] She played for a St. Catharines, Ontario boy’s team in the newly formed Little Toronto Hockey League as a defenceman and was selected for an All-Star charity game, however once she needed to produce her birth certificate her true gender was discovered and the story made national and international news.
After her experiences with hockey she tried swimming before realizing the track and field is what she was good in or more specifically the 800-metre event. She competed in four Olympic Games: (1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976), four Pan American Games and two Commonwealth Games and was Canada's flag-bearer at the 1976 Games. She won the gold medal in the 880-yard event at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. She also won gold for the 800-metre race at the 1971 Pan American Games and the bronze at the 1967 and 1975 Games, for the 800-metre and the 1500-metre distances.
From 1981 to 1991, she was the first woman Director General of Sport Canada, a federal government sports agency. In 1981, she was the first Canadian female elected to the Executive Committee of the Canadian Olympic Committee. From 1980 to 1982, she wrote a fitness column for the Canadian magazine, Chatelaine.
In 1982, she and Maureen McTeer, helped to organize the first women's national championship in ice hockey (known as the Esso Women's Nationals). The Abby Hoffman Cup is named in her honour. Since 1995, she has been a council member of the International Association of Athletics Federations. In 2003, she was named senior advisor with Health Canada and is executive co-ordinator of Health Canada’s pharmaceutical management strategies.
She is also the sister of Paul F. Hoffman, a geologist credited with the "snowball earth" theory.
In 1982, Hoffman was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2004, she was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
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