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Dame Mary Elizabeth Peters, DBE, DL
(born 6 July 1939) is a former British athlete, competing mainly in the pentathlon and shot put.
Biography
Mary Peters was born in Halewood, Merseyside, but moved to Ballymena at age eleven.
She now lives near Belfast.[1]
She represented Northern Ireland at every Commonwealth
Games between 1958 and 1974. In these games she won 2 gold
medals for the pentathlon, plus a gold and silver medal for
the shot put.
As for her Olympic Games pentathlon record, after finishing 4th in
1964 and 9th in 1968, came the crowning moment of her long career.
In the 1972 Summer Olympics she won the
gold medal, narrowly beating the local favourite, Heide
Rosendahl.
She was appointed CBE in 1990, having been
appointed MBE in 1972. In 2000 she was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire, the
year in which Denise
Lewis won gold in the women's multi-discipline event, now the
heptathlon.
She became a Trustee of The Outward Bound Trust in May 2001 and is
Vice President of the Northern Ireland Outward Bound Association.
Dame Mary is also Patron of Springhill Hospice in
Rochdale, Lancashire.
Northern
Ireland's premier athletics track, on the outskirts of Belfast, is called the Mary
Peters Track in her honour. In April 2009, it was announced that
she will become the next Lord Lieutenant of Belfast city[1].
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