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Sport and the British

Sport and the British: Episode 27: Golden Girls

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Golden Girls

Episode 27

Episode 27: Golden Girls

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Sport and the British, Golden Girls

Clare Balding explains how the 1960s saw women athletes finally take centre stage.

Clare Balding explains how the 1960s saw female British athletes beginning to take centre stage on the podium and in the press.

In the final week of her series exploring how sport made Britain and Britain made sport, Clare Balding looks at the female British athletes of the 1960's who finally took centre stage on the podium and in the press.
She visits the home of the Birchfield Harriers in Birmingham, one of the country's leading athletics clubs. There she meets Norma Blaine who'd been coaching young women athletes since 1951. Norma remembers when women were unable to compete in any distance race over two hundred metres. Her friend, Diane Leather ran a five minute mile, (breaking the women's world record), the same week as Bannister broke the male world record but Diane's achievement was never acknowledged.
Clare explores the legacy of Anita Lonsborough,Dorothy Hyman, Anne Packer, Mary Rand and Lillian Board and asks if this golden age of female athletes can ever be repeated.
The series has been made with The International Centre for Sport History and Culture at De Montfort University in Leicester.
Technical presentation: John Benton
Producer: Lucy Lunt.

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Clare Balding charts how sport has shaped the British and how Britain has shaped sport

Clare Balding presents a 30-part series charting how sport has shaped the British and how Britain has shaped sport

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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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