Sue Scott/Reeve (now Herrington)
Sue Reeve was perhaps the first in the distinguished succession of female Birchfield multi-event athletes who actually had the chance to show their abilities at international level
Until the year before Sue’s birth, multi-talented female athletes such as Gladys Lunn, had to choose one or two events at international level. But in 1950 the women’s pentathlon featured in Empire and European games and, when Sue Scott was nine, it was introduced at the Olympics. It comprised shot putt, high jump, hurdles, sprint and long jump. The stage was set for her to show her skills
Her potential was first spotted by Norma Blaine and by the age of 11 she excelled at both track and field events. At 14 she’d jumped over 19ft, won national titles in pentathlon, long jump and high jump and taken 3rd place in 100yds and shot putt.
By the age of 16, coached by Dorothy Nelson Neal, she’d earned her first international vest and set a world record for a junior pentathlete. That year she jumped 6m.
On her 17th birthday, in 1968, she was at the Olympics in Mexico in a pentathlon team with Mary Peters and Ann Wilson. She finished 10th.
The next big event was the Commonwealths in 1970. She went, but exacerbated an ankle injury so badly that she needed surgery in 1972. Still only 21 and passionate about athletics, she fought for pentathlon selection in the 1974 Commonwealth games, but failed. Undaunted, she concentrated so successfully on long jump that she led the UK rankings from 1976 to 1980 and won a place in the GB team at both the Montreal and Moscow Olympics. She also jumped to Commonwealth gold in Edmonton in 1978.
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