| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Paralympic Games | ||
| Competitor for United Kingdom | ||
| Archery (B1) | ||
| Gold | 1960 Rome | Columbia Round open |
| Swimming (class 5) | ||
| Gold | 1960 Rome | 50 m Backstroke complete |
| Dartchery | ||
| Gold | 1972 Heidelberg | Pairs open |
| Silver | 1976 Tel Aviv | Pairs open |
| Lawn bowls (wh / 2-5) | ||
| Silver | 1976 Tel Aviv | Pairs |
| Gold | 1980 Arnhem | Pairs |
Margaret Maughan (born ca. 1928),[1] is a British former competitive archer. She holds the distinction of being Britain's first ever gold medallist at the Paralympic Games.[2]
She suffered a car accident in 1959 which left her unable to walk, and was treated at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. There, she took up archery and joined an archery club. The hospital had been the site of the Stoke Mandeville Games, a sports competition for wheelchair athletes which subsequently developed into the Paralympic Games.[3]
Maughan was selected as part of Britain's delegation to the Ninth Stoke Mandeville Games, later known as the First Summer Paralympic Games, held in Rome in 1960.[4]
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Maughan competed in only one archery event, the Women's Columbia round open. Scoring 484 points, she won Britain's first ever Paralympic gold medal.
She also took part in swimming, in the Women's 50 metre backstroke complete class 5. As she was the only competitor in the race, she won by completing the full 50 metres, with a time of 1:49.2.[5][6]
Maughan did not take part in the 1964 Games, but returned for the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv. She entered two events in archery: the Women's albion round open and the Women's FITA round open. With scores of 571 and 1534, she finished fourth and fifth, respectively.[7]
At the 1972 Games in Heidelberg, Maughan again competed in the Women's FITA round open, finishing sixth with a score of 1699.
She also entered dartchery, with a teammate whose name is recorded as M. Cooper, in the Women's pairs open. They took the gold medal, ahead of France and Norway.[8]
At the 1976 Summer Paralympics in Toronto, Maughan diversified further. She and teammate M. Cooper obtained the silver medal in the Women's pairs open in dartchery, behind the United States and ahead of South Africa. In archery, in the Women's advanced metric round open, she finished fifth with a score of 568.
Entering two events in lawn bowls, she obtained two victories to finish fourth in the Women's singles wh – the gold going to South Africa's Margaret Harriman – while British competitors took silver and bronze. In the Women's pairs wh, she and teammate F. Nowak took the silver medal (behind South Africa and ahead of another British pair), with three victories.[9]
For her fifth and final appearance at the Paralympic Games, Maughan competed only in lawn bowls. In the Women's singles 2-5, she was beaten 4:21 by Germany's Swanepoel, and 12:21 by fellow British competitor R. Thompson, finishing fourth and last. But in the Women's pairs 2-5, she teamed up with R. Thompson to win her final gold medal, beating a Maltese pair 13:9 then a British pair by an unrecorded score.[10]