Tessa Sanderson
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| Medal record | ||
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| Women's Athletics | ||
Representing  Great Britain
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| Olympic Games | ||
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1984 Los Angeles | Javelin Throw |
Theresa ("Tessa") Ione Sanderson CBE (born March 14, 1956) is a former British javelin thrower and heptathlete.
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 feud[1].
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.
External links
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Commonwealth Games champions in women's javelin throw | |
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- 1956 births
- Living people
- Athletes at the 1980 Summer Olympics
- Athletes at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- Athletes at the 1988 Summer Olympics
- Athletes at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- Athletes at the 1996 Summer Olympics
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- English athletes
- Javelin throwers
- Olympic athletes of Great Britain
- Olympic gold medalists for Great Britain
- People from Wolverhampton
- English people of Jamaican descent
- Athletes at the 1978 Commonwealth Games
- Athletes at the 1986 Commonwealth Games
- Athletes at the 1990 Commonwealth Games
- Jamaican immigrants to the United Kingdom
- Black British sportspeople
- People from Saint Elizabeth Parish
- British athletics Olympic medallist stubs