Tessa Sanderson

Tessa Sanderson

Theresa ("Tessa") Ione Sanderson CBE (born 14 March 1956) is a former British javelin thrower and heptathlete who competed in the javelin competition in every one of the six Olympics from 1976–1996 winning the Gold medal in 1984. She is the second Track & Field athlete, after Lia Manoliu (discus), to compete at six Olympics.

Biography

Sanderson was born in St Elizabeth, Jamaica of Ghanaian ancestry, she later emigrated to Wolverhampton, England. She was the UK's leading javelin thrower from the mid-1970s, winning silver in the 1978 European championships and gold in the Commonwealth Games three times (1978, 1986, 1990), but was eclipsed during the 1980s by the up-and-coming Fatima Whitbread, with whom she shared a long standing rivalry.

Legacy

When Sanderson won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in the javelin, becoming the first British black woman ever to win Olympic gold, her victory was quite unexpected. In the end, her career outlasted Whitbread's, and she competed at senior international level until 1996. She served as Vice-Chairman of Sport England from 1999 to 2005.

In 1988, she made an appearance on Bullseye. In 2005, she took part in the one-off special, Strictly African Dancing, as part of the Africa Lives season on the BBC. She was voted into third place by the viewers.

She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1985 New Year's Honours, following her Olympic gold, raised to Officer (OBE) in the 1998 New Year's Honours for her charity work, and to Commander (CBE) in the 2004 New Year's Honours for her services to Sport England.

There is a housing estate named after her in her adopted home town of Wednesfield, Sanderson Park. It is located on the playing fields of her former school, Wards Bridge High School. She is currently helping to run an academy in Newham, London that finds and helps train athletes to represent Britain in the 2012 Olympics. In September 2009 Tessa registered her own Charity sports academy carrying on her work alongside the now established Newham Sports Acadermy which created four years ago.

The name of the Charity is The Tessa Sanderson Foundation and Academy the charity is helping Tessa to work on a wider bases to help other youngsters who are disabled and non disabled achieve their goals and creating a pathway and more opportunities not just in Newham but the wider areas of London and with a vision of a national roll out.

In April 2009 Tessa again because of her work in the community made history again by organising the first 10K road run to run through the Olympic Park offering the community and other visitors to Newham the Host Borough of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games a fantastic birds eye view of what will be the new Olympic 2012 athletics stadium. The Newham Classic 10K was so successful that this now takes place annually and has led to other active running events for anyone such as the City of London West Ham Park Runs which takes place most Sunday mornings in West Ham Park in the East End of London.

Tessa has now been appointed as a Board member of the newly formed Olympic Park Legacy Company chaired by Baroness Ford to oversee and help with the formation of the Olympic Park for the Newham community and people living in the East End of London

On 1st May 2010, Tessa married to Densign White, former Olympic Judo player at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Tessa now organised and was associated with the Redbridge 10k on 24th July 2011, which was the first ever run in the borough of Redbridge.

Achievements

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Notes
Representing United Kingdom and England
1974	British Commonwealth Games	Christchurch, New Zealand	5th	48.54 m
1978	Commonwealth Games	Edmonton, Canada	1st	61.34 m
	European Championships	Prague, Czechoslovakia	2nd	62.40 m
1980	Olympic Games	Moscow, Soviet Union	19th	48.76 m
1983	World Championships	Helsinki, Finland	4th	64.76 m
1984	Olympic Games	Los Angeles, United States	1st	69.56 m
1986	Commonwealth Games	Edinburgh, United Kingdom	1st	69.80 m
1987	World Championships	Rome, Italy	4th	67.54 m
1988	Olympic Games	Seoul, South Korea	21st	56.70 m
1990	Commonwealth Games	Auckland, New Zealand	1st	65.72 m
	European Championships	Split, Yugoslavia	12th	57.56 m
1992	Olympic Games	Barcelona, Spain	4th	63.58 m
1996	Olympic Games	Atlanta, United States	14th	58.86 m

See also

• List of athletes with the most appearances at Olympic Games

External links

• Tessa Sanderson's website
• The Tessa Sanderson Foundation and Academy
• sporting heroes photos
• trackfield.brinkster
• Olympic results