Margaret Beck

Margaret Beck (later Margaret Lockwood; born 1952) is a retired badminton player from England who ranked among the world's best during most of the 1970s.

Playing career

An exceptional junior talent, she won women's singles at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games while still in her teens.[1]

In 1973, Ms. Beck won the women's singles at the All-England Championships, which, aside from the international team championships (Uber Cup and Thomas Cup), was then the world's most prestigious tournament.[1]

She shared the All-England women's doubles title with Gillian Gilks in 1974.[1] She won singles at the World Invitation Tournament, a forerunner of the BWF World Championships, that was held in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1974.[2]

Her other international singles titles included the European Badminton Championships (1972), and the Canadian (1975), Irish (1971), Portuguese (1973), Scottish (1972, 1974), and South African (1976) Opens. She also won five English National singles titles (against opposition that included the formidable Gillian Gilks), and a dozen or more international doubles titles.

Noted for her rigorous fitness regimen, she developed a problem with her knee which was seriously aggravated during the first World Badminton Championships in 1977. The singles and doubles bronze medals that she earned there would be her last. Despite surgeries and attempted rehabilitation she never played serious competitive badminton again.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Davis, Pat (1983). Guinness Book of Badminton. Enfield, Middlesex, England: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. pp. 106–109, 143.
  2. "World Invitation Tournament is Huge Success," World Badminton, October 1974, 2, 3.