The Taking Part

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BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Taking Part

Tim Franks measures the impact of taking part in one memorable Olympic event in 1972.

Tim Franks measures the impact of Mary Peters' win in the Pentathlon at the 1972 Olympic Games. From 2012.

Tim Franks recalls the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Dame Mary Peters triumphed in the Pentathlon.

For millions of British TV viewers, the grainy picture of Mary giving her all was the brightest moment of a games lit up by Mark Spitz and Olga Korbut - only to be blighted by the massacre of Israeli athletes.

But for the others competing in the Pentathlon, this was also their moment, their chance to take part in Olympic competition.  

Tim asks those who strove to beat Mary, what impact being an Olympian had on their lives. 

German, Heide Rosendahl lost out by the blink of an eye, while Canadian, Diane Jones gashed her leg on the hurdles in the first event.  

And Tim goes further into the field, hearing from the other British athlete Anne Wilson who was well-placed after the first event, and Margaret Murphy, the Republic of Ireland's only competitor.  And way back down the field, Lin Chu-Yu.  

In this unique view of those two days of competition and the lives that followed, Tim hears how these Olympic memories have played out 40 years on. 

So was it enough just to take part? 

Or are there nagging frustrations still about the tiny margins between winning and losing? 

Or the giant chasms between the competitors supported by their national sporting bodies - and those, like Margaret Murphy, who relied on the goodwill of local schools and a generous priest who cleared a run-up to a temporary sandpit so that she could work on her long jump.

Producer: Tom Alban

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2012.

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