Jean Catherine Pickering (née Desforges; 4 July 1929 – 25 March 2013) was a female track and field athlete from Great Britain, who competed mainly in the

80 metres hurdles 80 metres hurdles is a distance in hurdling run by women until 1972 in international competitions. Since the 1972 Summer Olympics, the event has been permanently replaced by the 100 metre hurdles. Masters athletics The distance, with different sp ...

and

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 ...

. She won bronze medals at the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...

and the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which consists mostly, but not exclusively, of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 ...

and is the only British woman to have won gold medals at the

European Athletics Championships The European Athletics Championships is a biennial (from 2010) athletics event organised by the European Athletic Association and is recognised as the elite continental outdoor athletics championships for Europe. Editions First held, for me ...

in both a track and a field event (

4 × 100 m relay 4 (four) is a number, numeral (linguistics), numeral and numerical digit, digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is a square number, the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is tetraphobia, considered unlucky i ...

in 1950, long jump in 1954). During her career she set

British records British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

in the

women's pentathlon The pentathlon or women's pentathlon is a combined track and field event in which each woman competes in five separate events over one day (formerly two days). The distance or time for each event is converted to points via scoring tables, with t ...

and the

. She and her husband,

Ron Pickering Ronald James Pickering (4 May 1930 – 13 February 1991) was an athletics coach and BBC sports commentator. Early life and education Pickering was born in Hackney. His father was a sign fixer. He became head boy at West Ham Secondary School ( ...

, had a lasting impact on British athletics, particularly through the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund, which provides support to young track and field athletes. Her son, Shaun Pickering, became an Olympian and a Commonwealth Games medallist, competing in the

shot put The shot put is a track-and-field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical Ball (sports), ball—the ''shot''—as far as possible. For men, the sport has been a part of the Olympic Games, modern Olympics since their 1896 Summer Olym ...

Athletics career

Born in

Forest Gate Forest Gate is a district of West Ham in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England. It is located northeast of Charing Cross. The area's name relates to its position adjacent to Wanstead Flats, the southernmost part of Epping Forest. ...

, London, she made her international debut at the age of eighteen, competing in the 80 m hurdles. She represented Great Britain at the

1952 Summer Olympics The 1952 Summer Olympics (, ), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad (, ) and commonly known as Helsinki 1952, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. After Japan declared in ...

held in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, Finland, where she finished fifth in the 80 m hurdles and won the

4 × 100 metres relay The 4 × 100 metres relay or sprint relay is an athletics track event run in lanes over one lap of the track with four runners completing 100 metres each. The first runners must begin in the same stagger as for the indiv ...

bronze medal with her teammates

Sylvia Cheeseman Sylvia Cheeseman (born 19 May 1929) is an English retired sprinter who won a bronze medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics. Biography Cheeseman's mother was a concert pianist, her father was a double bass player and a founding member of the Royal ...

June Foulds June Florence Paul (née Foulds; 13 June 1934 – 6 November 2020) was a British track and field sprint runner. Early life Born June Florence Foulds in Shepherd's Bush in 1934, she was brought up by her grandparents. She originated from East ...

and

Heather Armitage Heather Joy Armitage (later Young, then McClelland; born 17 March 1933) is a British retired sprinter and British record holder for the 100 yards. Biography Armitage won her first major title representing Yorkshire in the all England schools ...

. In 1953, Jean Desforges broke a British record and became the first British woman to long jump over 20 feet, when jumping 6.10 m in Nienburg, Germany. In the 1950 European Championships in Brussels, Desforges finished fifth in the 80 m hurdles and was part of the gold medal winning 4 × 100 m relay team. She was European Champion in the long jump, in the 1954 European Championships in Berne, Switzerland, with a leap of 6.04 m. At the same championships Desforges finished sixth in the 80 m hurdles. She remains the only British athlete to have won a European gold medal in both a track and a field event. In the

1954 Commonwealth Games The 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games were held in Vancouver, British Columbia, from 30 July to 7 August 1954. This was the fifth edition of the event that would eventually become known as the Commonwealth Games, the second post-war G ...

in Vancouver, Canada, Desforges won a bronze medal in both the long jump and 80 m hurdles. Desforges was an eight-time

WAAA Championships The WAAA Championships was an annual track and field competition organised by the Women's Amateur Athletic Association (WAAA) in England. It was the foremost domestic athletics event for women during its lifetime. Since 1880, the Amateur Athl ...

winner, having won the 80 metres hurdles title four times (1949, 1952, 1953 and 1954), the long jump title twice (1953 and 1954), and the pentathlon title twice (1953 and 1954). She ended her career with personal bests of 11.1 seconds for both the

100-yard dash The 100-yard dash is a track and field sprint event of . It was part of the Commonwealth Games until 1970, and was included in the triathlon of the Olympics in 1904. It is not generally used in international events, replaced by the 100- ...

and the 80 m hurdles. She also broke the British record for the pentathlon in her career, accumulating a total of 3997 points in 1953.

Family and foundation

She married

, a prominent athletics coach and television commentator, on 23 October 1954, in Forest Gate, London. The couple had two children, a daughter (Kim) in 1958, and a son ( Shaun Pickering) in 1961 who went on to athletic success in his own right.Jean Pickering, a woman who made an amazing impact
.

European Athletics The European Athletic Association (EAA, more commonly known as European Athletics) is the governing body for Sport of athletics, athletics in Europe. It is one of the six Area Associations of the world's athletics governing body World Athletics. E ...

. Retrieved on 30 March 2013. Her husband's death in 1991 led her to create the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund to help support athletics in Britain at a grass-roots level. By 2013, the Memorial Fund had given out £2.0 million in grants to young athletes, coaches and athletics groups. Such was the breadth of the fund's support, around 75% of the British track and field team had been Ron Picking Memorial Fund grant recipients earlier in their career, among them Olympic champions

Mo Farah Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah (born Hussein Abdi Kahin; 23 March 1983) is a Somali-British former long-distance runner. Considered one of the greatest runners of all time, his ten global championship gold medals (four Olympic and six World tit ...

Jessica Ennis Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (née Ennis; born 28 January 1986) is a British retired athlete who specialised in the heptathlon and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion (2 ...

Christine Ohuruogu Christine Ijeoma Ohuruogu (born 17 May 1984) is a British former track and field athlete who specialised in the 400 metres, the event for which she is an Olympic, World and Commonwealth champion. The Olympic champion in 2008, and silver medali ...

and

Greg Rutherford Gregory James Rutherford Member of the Order of the British Empire, MBE (born 17 November 1986) is a retired British people, British track and field athlete who specialised in the long jump. He represented Great Britain at the Olympics, World a ...

.Jean Pickering: 1929–2013
.

Athletics Weekly ''AW'' (formerly ''Athletics Weekly'') is a monthly track and field magazine published in the United Kingdom by Athletics Weekly Limited. The magazine covers news, results, fixtures, coaching and product advice for all aspects of track and field ...

(25 March 2013). Retrieved on 30 March 2013. She was appointed a

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(MBE) in the 2010 New Years Honours List for her services to athletics. She was inducted into the

England Athletics Hall of Fame The England Athletics Hall of Fame was launched in 2008 with a panel of experts selecting a list of potential inductees for athletics fans and members of the public to vote on. The Hall of Fame honours those who have made an outstanding contribut ...

in 2011. Her passion for the sport remained until the end of her life – she suffered from poor health due to a heart condition in her last years but focused on being present for the Athletics at the 2012 London Olympics. She died aged 83 on 25 March 2013.Ford, Martin (28 March 2013)
Athletics world pays tribute to former Broxbourne resident Jean Pickering
''Hertfordshire Mercury''. Retrieved on 30 March 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickering, Jean 1929 births 2013 deaths People from Forest Gate Athletes from the London Borough of Newham People from Broxbourne English female sprinters British female sprinters English female hurdlers British female hurdlers English female long jumpers British female long jumpers Olympic athletes for Great Britain Olympic bronze medallists for Great Britain Athletes (track and field) at the 1952 Summer Olympics Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for England Athletes (track and field) at the 1950 British Empire Games Athletes (track and field) at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games European Athletics Championships medalists Members of the Order of the British Empire Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists in athletics (track and field) Medallists at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games 20th-century English sportswomen Commonwealth Games bronze medallists in athletics