by Stuart Weir
Thelma Hopkins 1936-2025
The death was reported recently of Thelma Hopkins at the age of 88. Her greatest achievement was winning a silver medal in the High Jump at the 1956 Olympics. In the same year she broke the world record with a leap of 1.74. I have heard Niola Olysagers say “the must be a reason why I am 6 foot 2 – and perhaps the reason is High jump”. Hopkins was 5 foot 5. Yet she would regularly beat 6 foot high jumpers.
She competed in the 1952 Olympics as a 16 year-old and came fourth. Rather than being pleased with that achievement as a junior among the world’s best, they apparently felt she had failed by not getting a medal. Remember too in the pre-Fosbury era jumpers would launch themselves head first at the bar and land with a thud. In one local long-jump competition she is reported to have cleared the sandpit and landed on the grass beyond.
In 1954 she competed in the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games, winning both. She was also second in the long jump at the European Championships that year. A versatile athlete she was, in different years, British champion at high jump, long jump and 80m hurdles as the event then was. On the say she broke the world record ay a small local meet she also competed in the long jump. Sprint hurdles and javelin. Her Northern Ireland long jump record of 6.11m set in 1956 stood until 2013. Of course, sport was totally amateur in those days and Hopkins played field hockey and squash to international standard.
A different era but a magnificent athlete.
