Sally Jane Janet Gunnell (born 29 July 1966) is a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
former
track and field athlete, active between 1984 and 1997, who won the 1992
Olympic gold medal
Olympic or Olympics may refer to
Sports
Competitions
* Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896
** Summer Olympic Games
** Winter Olympic Games
* Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
in the
400 metres hurdles
The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women.
On a standard outdoor track, 400 metres is the length of the inside lane, once a ...
. During a golden 24-month period between 1992 and 1994, Gunnell won every international event open to her, claiming Olympic Games, World Championship, European Championship, Commonwealth Games, Goodwill Games, IAAF World Cup and European Cup golds in the event, and breaking the British, European and World records in it. She is the only female British athlete to have won all four 'majors'; Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles, and was the first female 400 metres hurdler in history to win the Olympic and World titles and break the world record. Her former world record time of 52.74 secs in 1993, still ranks in the
world all-time top ten (as of 2022) and is the current
British record. She was named World and European Female Athlete of the Year in 1993, and was made an
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
in 1993 and an
OBE in 1998.
Early life
Gunnell was born in
Chigwell
Chigwell is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest District of Essex, England. It is part of the urban and metropolitan area of London, and is adjacent to the northern boundary of Greater London. It is on the Central line of the London U ...
,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
to Les and Rosemary Gunnell, and grew up on the family's three-hundred-acre farm and attended the local primary and
West Hatch High schools in
Chigwell
Chigwell is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest District of Essex, England. It is part of the urban and metropolitan area of London, and is adjacent to the northern boundary of Greater London. It is on the Central line of the London U ...
.
Athletics career
Gunnell started out in
athletics
Athletics may refer to:
Sports
* Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking
** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport
* Athletics (physical culture), competi ...
with the
Essex Ladies club as an accomplished
long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...
er and
heptathlete
A heptathlon is a track and field combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek επτά (hepta, meaning "seven") and ἄθλος (áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, meaning "competition"). A competitor in a hept ...
, before specialising in hurdling. In 1984, she narrowly missed Olympic selection at both heptathlon, with a score of 5680 points and in the 100 metres hurdles, where she set a UK junior record of 13.30 secs.
In 1986, having won the
AAAs and
UK titles, Gunnell won the
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...
gold medal in the 100 metres hurdles in Edinburgh, ahead of
Wendy Jeal
Wendy Jeal (née McDonnell, born 21 November 1960) is a female English former track and field athlete who competed in the 100 metres hurdles. She represented Great Britain at the 1988 Olympic Games. In 1986, representing England, she won a Com ...
and 1984 Olympic heptathlon champion
Glynis Nunn
Glynis or Glynnis is a female and rarely male given name of Welsh origin. It may refer to:
*Glynis Barber (born 1955), South African actress
*Glynis Breakwell, (born 1952), Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bath
*Glynnis Breytenbach, South Afr ...
. She would remain the UK number one in the event over the next four seasons and reach the semi-finals at the 1987 World Championships and 1988 Olympics in the event.
Gunnell first attempted the 400 m hurdles event in 1987, with a 59.9 clocking. In 1988, in her first full season at the event, she would reach the
Olympic final in Seoul. At the Olympic trials in Birmingham, she broke the UK record with 55.40. In Seoul she would improve this twice, first to 54.48 in the semis then to 54.03, to finish fifth in the final. This would remain her best time in the event for three years.
In 1989, Gunnell won the European Indoor title at 400 metres. Outdoors, she finished second in the 400 m hurdles at the European Cup behind East Germany's
Petra Krug
Petra Krug (born 9 November 1963 in Dresden) is a retired East German hurdler. She represented the sports clubs SC Einheit Dresden and SC Dynamo Berlin, and became East German champion in 1989.
Krug finished fifth at the 1983 World Championship ...
, but ahead of Olympic silver medallist
Tatyana Ledovskaya. In September at the
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
, she was third behind
Sandra Farmer-Patrick
Sandra Marie Farmer-Patrick ( née Farmer, born 18 August 1962) is a Jamaican-born American former athlete who competed mainly in the 400 metres hurdles. She won silver medals in that event at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, and at the ...
of the US and Ledovsakya, but this time ahead of Krug. In January 1990, she defeated 1988 Olympic champion
Debbie Flintoff-King
Debra ("Debbie") Lee Flintoff-King, (OAM) (born 20 April 1960) is a retired Australian athlete, and winner of the women's 400 m hurdles event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Athletics career
Flintoff-King was born in Melbourne, the daughter of ...
to win the
Commonwealth title in Auckland. The 1990 summer season however was disappointing, when she only finished sixth at the
European Championships.
Gunnell entered into the best phase of her career in 1991, improving her own three-year-old UK record three times. In Monaco she ran 53.78, in Zurich she ran 53.62, then at the
World Championships
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
in Tokyo, she won the silver medal behind Ledovskaya with 53.16, the then third fastest time of all-time. Ledovskaya won with 53.11.
Gunnell won the
400 m hurdles at the
1992 Olympic Games in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
, running 53.23 to defeat Sandra Farmer-Patrick. She also anchored the British 4 × 400 m quartet to a bronze medal. In 1993, she reached her peak, when she set the
world record
A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...
in the 400 hurdles to win
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
in the
World Championships
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
in Stuttgart, winning in 52.74, narrowly ahead of Farmer-Patrick who ran 52.79, also inside the old record.
This record was broken by
Kim Batten in 1995, but is still the
British record. Gunnell was the first female 400 metres hurdler to have won the Olympic and World titles and broken the world record, a feat since achieved by both
Dalilah Muhammad
Dalilah Muhammad (born February 7, 1990) is an American track and field athlete who specializes in the 400 meters hurdles. She is the 2016 Rio Olympics champion and 2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medalist, becoming at the latter the second-fastest ...
and
Sydney McLaughlin
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (, born August 7, 1999) is an American hurdler and sprinter who competes in the 400 meters hurdles. She is the 2020 Tokyo Olympic champion with the Games record, and 2022 World champion with a world record time of 50 ...
.
In 1994, Gunnell added the
European title to her collection, winning comfortably in 53.33. She also won the
Goodwill Games
The Goodwill Games were an international sports competition created by Ted Turner in reaction to the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s. In 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused the United States and other ...
ahead of Kim Batten, successfully defended her
Commonwealth title and won the
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
title in London. 1994 was her third (and final) year as the world's number one. She missed most of 1995 due to injury, an injury from which she would never fully recover. Her defence of her
Olympic title in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
in 1996 was cut short when she pulled up injured in the semi-finals. This seemed a particularly cruel blow, as this race occurred on her 30th birthday. Also in 1996, she worked as a
Red Cross
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...
ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...
in
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
. In September 1997, she retired after a recurrence of an
Achilles tendon
The Achilles tendon or heel cord, also known as the calcaneal tendon, is a tendon at the back of the lower leg, and is the thickest in the human body. It serves to attach the plantaris, gastrocnemius (calf) and soleus muscles to the calcaneus (h ...
injury forced her to pull out of the World Championships semi-final.
Gunnell remains the only woman to have won the
European
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
,
World
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
,
Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
and
Olympic
Olympic or Olympics may refer to
Sports
Competitions
* Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896
** Summer Olympic Games
** Winter Olympic Games
* Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
400-metre hurdles titles.
Gunnell is now involved as one of the ambassadors for McCain's Track & Field partnership with
UK Athletics
UK Athletics (UKA) is the governing body for the sport of athletics in the United Kingdom. It is responsible for overseeing the governance of athletics events in the UK as well as athletes, their development, and athletics officials. The orga ...
.
Television
Gunnell worked as a television presenter, predominantly for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, until 2006. She also co-hosted the game show ''Body Heat'' (1994–96) on
'' – Series 7 (1993–94), co-winning with Michaela Strachan, donating her winnings to a charity working to find a cure for breast cancer. In 1997, she was the recipient of the "big red book" on the ''
''. She also won a ''Weakest Link'' Sporting Heroes Special, first broadcast on 25 July 2009 on BBC One.
She took part in a celebrity version of TV show ''
'' which aired on 2 January 2010.
In 2012, Gunnell took part on ITV's ''The Cube'' and won £20,000 for her charity.
In the 1993 New Year Honours, Gunnell was made an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was made an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire). In 2011, Gunnell was appointed
.
In 2012, Sally was one of five Olympians chosen as part of a series body-casting artworks by
and copies being sold in aid of the charity Headfirst.
Gunnell is married to fellow athlete Jonathan Bigg, and has three sons; Finley, Luca and Marley. She lives in
.
100 m hurdles champion (1986–1989, 1991–1993)
*2-time AAAs 400 m hurdles champion (1988, 1996)
*2-time