When Ann Sayer, who has died aged 83, tried to enter her first long-distance race walk in 1974 she was told by the male organisers that they could not stop her using the road, but that her name and time would not be recorded. Had they been, she would have received a medal, because she finished third.
Once described by the athlete Chris Brasher as “the stuff of which empire is made”, Sayer was one of the finest long-distance walkers ever produced by Britain, a GB international in two sports – rowing and walking – and undoubtedly one of its greatest female athletes. As the first woman in Britain to qualify, in 1977, as a Centurion – someone who has walked 100 miles in under 24 hours – she was a pioneer in women’s athletics and the record she set in 1980, for the fastest ever Land’s End to John O’Groats walk by a woman, is still unbroken. Her time – 13 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes – was beaten by Sandra Brown in 1995, and in 2006 Sharon Gayter completed the route even faster, but both ran at least some of the way, and these are regarded as running records. Sayer walked every step of her 840-mile route.
Six feet tall, with immensely long legs and flying blond curls, Sayer had a relentless, unremitting stride that earned her the nickname “metronome”. In full flight she was a magnificent sight, Amazonian.
The youngest of three children of Rose (nee Wilson) and Ernest Sayer, Ann was born in Whitstable, Kent, where her father was a tobacconist and watch repairer. Her sporting background was in rowing, which she took up at London University. After graduating with a degree in geology, she worked for the petroleum company BP and rowed in an eight for United Universities (which was later merged into the Thames Rowing Club): “It was nice to overtake men’s crews when we were practising, though usually they had to be quite bad for that to happen.”
Women’s rowing was not admitted to the Olympic programme until the 1970s, but she was selected for Great Britain in the 1962 European Championships, in which they reached the final, finishing fifth. The crew were largely self-funding, buying their own boat and blades, and had to sew Great Britain on the backs of their tracksuits. “Some of the sewing was rather uneven,” Sayer said.
She was in her late 30s when she took up race walking. At the time, the longest event for women was 5km and when, in October 1977, she became the first woman in Britain to break the barrier for completing 100 miles in under 24 hours, resignations were offered rather than allow her to join the elite all-male club of Centurions. She was nevertheless admitted, though two years later she was barred from competing at another Centurions event, when the organisers claimed the venue did not have the facilities for women.
“I was not aggressively women’s lib,” she said of her successful battle for acceptance in this male-dominated world. “I was more bolshy than anything. If men were allowed to be daft and do 24-hour walks, why not us? Why shouldn’t a woman do this?”
In person, Sayer was quiet, with a wry sense of humour and a reluctance to blow her own trumpet. She was very much a team player so it was ironic that she excelled in such a solitary pursuit as long-distance walking. When planning her attempt on the Land’s End to John O’Groats record , she was asked how many miles she thought she could accomplish in one day. She responded that she had walked the best part of 120 miles in 24 hours and found it rather exhausting, but that she should be able to manage 60 miles a day every day for just under a fortnight. On the final day she walked 76 miles. “I was quite glad to get to the finish,” she said.
In 1994 she became the oldest woman to represent GB when she was selected for a 200km race in France. In 2005 she was appointed MBE for services to sport. She was a vice-president of the Long Distance Walkers Association, who supported her on her Land’s End to John O’Groats challenge and for whom she completed several of their annual 100-mile cross-country challenge events, and after retirement was heavily involved in the life of her local community in south-west London, leading walks for Walking for Health, acting as a volunteer guide at Strawberry Hill House and working in the visitor information centre in Bushy Park.
She died from long-term complications of a fall in 2018 that resulted in a broken hip. Issued with a motorised scooter, she sent the first one back because it wasn’t fast enough.
She is survived by her brother, Victor.
• Ann Rosemary Sayer, long-distance walker, born 16 October 1936; died 15 April 2020
