Dorothy Tyler-Odam

Dorothy Tyler-Odam

Ibolya Csák, Elfriede Kaun and Dorothy Odam at the 1936 Olympics.
Medal record
Women’s athletics
Representing  Great Britain
Olympic Games
Silver	1936 Berlin	High jump
Silver	1948 London	High jump
Representing  England
British Empire Games
Gold	1938 Sydney	High jump
Gold	1950 Auckland	High jump
Silver	1954 Vancouver	High jump

Dorothy Jennifer Beatrice Tyler, MBE (née Odam; 14 March 1920 – 25 September 2014) was a British athlete who competed mainly in the high jump. She was born in Stockwell, London.^[1]

Odam competed for Great Britain in the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany where she won the silver medal behind Ibolya Csák. She jumped the highest and was the first to clear 1.60 meters, and would have won under modern countback rules, but under the 1936 rulebook a jump-off was called for, and Csák won the gold. ^[2]

In 1939 she broke the world record in the high jump with 1.66m, but Germany's Dora Ratjen broke her record quickly. ^[3] Odam was suspicious of Ratjen and, according to Odam, "They wrote to me telling me I didn't hold the record, so I wrote to them saying, 'She's not a woman, she's a man'. They did some research and found 'her' serving as a waiter called Hermann Ratjen. So I got my world record back." ^[4] Odam's world record was formally recognized by the sport's world governing body, the IAAF, in 1957. ^[5]

She won the silver medal again in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, making her the only woman to win Olympic athletics medals before and after the war.^[6] Her 1936 win also made her the first British woman to win an individual Olympic medal in athletics. ^[7]

Odam was also twice a gold medallist at the British Empire Games, winning at Sydney in 1938 and Auckland in 1950. In Sydney she was the only Englishwoman to win athletics gold, setting a Games record of 5ft 3in, which is the same as 1.60 meters. ^[8]

In 2012, she was the official starter for the London Marathon.

She died on 25 September 2014 aged 94 following a long illness.^[9]

References

External links

• New Years Honours