As the track and field events begin to come to life at this year’s Olympics in Tokyo, there is no better time to look back on one of Team GB’s greats in the pentathlon, Mary Peters.
Competing in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, she won the gold medal in the event for Great Britain and Northern Ireland, beating the favourite, Germany’s Heide Rosendahl by 10 points.
Not only did she win the gruelling event, she set a world record score, leading her to be voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
She didn’t just stop at the Olympics, and went on to win gold again representing Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch just two years later.
She has now been appointed as a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter and also was named the Lord Lieutenant of the City of Belfast in recognition of all of her work and services to athletics, the Mary Peters Trust helping to financially support talented young sportspeople to achieve.
There have been many who have gone on to excel in their sport that have benefited from the trust such as Rory McIlroy, Carl Frampton and Kelly Gallagher.
Want more great historical pictures like these? Make sure to check out : picstory.co.uk
PicStory is a history of Britain like never before.
From photographs depicting local scenes, to coverage of events that swept across the whole nation, PicStory is a growing collection of images that together document the lives, events, and movements that have shaped modern Britain from the earliest years of the 20th Century up to the eve of the present day.
Reach titles have been documenting and recording British life for hundreds of years. Now, PicStory is about opening up our archives to the general public providing an incredible window into our shared history.
New technologies enable us to present these archives in full resolution and access is open to all. Plus, the images may be freely shared for free using our embed tool, provided it is for any non-commercial use.
There is no curated commentary or overriding narrative, simply a growing collection of digital images taken from Reach newsrooms across the entire country.
T his is history as it happened, good and bad, big and small, captured by our photographers and now shared with the public for free.
