The 1984 Olympic javelin champion celebrates her 65th birthday today and we choose 10 of her most memorable competitions

Tessa Sanderson was born in St Elizabeth in Jamaica on March 14, 1956, and moved to Britain at the age of eight to join her parents, who had moved to Wolverhampton a few years earlier.

She began to show potential in her early teenage years and won her first national title in 1971 aged 15 when she won the javelin gold with a 42.02m throw.

Even then she was more than just a javelin thrower and at the end of 1971 apart from being top intermediate in her speciality, she was also in the top 10 in the high jump (1.56m) and pentathlon (3149 points) in the UK.

Two years later she was a disappointing 12th in the European Junior Championships (with 39.18m) but later in the season she set a UK age-17 best of 51.34m and qualified for the 1974 Commonwealth Games where as a 17-year-old she was a fine fifth with a distance of 48.54m.

At the age of 20 she finished 10th in the 1976 Montreal Olympics close to her British record with a 57.00m throw.

It was clear at this stage that Sanderson was an exceptional talent and here we pick out 10 of her greatest moments thereafter in chronological order.

In her career she won 10 Women’s AAA senior javelin titles between 1975 and 1996 and three UK titles at the event in 1978, 1979 and then 1997 for one of the biggest ever gaps in winning any British title! In addition she was awarded a MBE in 1985, OBE in 1998 and a CBE in 2004.

European Cup Semi Final, Dublin, July 17, 1977
1st 67.20m (UK record)

A day after she finished third in the inaugural UK 400m hurdles championships in 60.46, she first broke through the 60-metre barrier in the javelin with 60.24m before improving to a top class 64.42m but no one expected the improvement to go this far in this Cup match. Up against world record-holder Ruth Fuchs, the Briton smashed her Commonwealth record with a massive 67.66m to go second all-time as she finished well clear of the East German (64.46m). She was not quite able to replicate that from the rest of the year but finished second in the European Cup and third in the inaugural World Cup with Fuchs winning both.

Commonwealth Games, Edmonton. August 10, 1978
1st 61.34m

There was little doubt who would take gold but the Briton won her first major title at a canter as with her opening throw she advanced the Games record to over 60 metres and 200 feet as she won by a massive six and half metres from Canadian Alison Hayward (54.52m).

European Championships, Prague, September 1, 1978
2nd 62.40m

After the highs of the Commonwealths, British athletes generally struggled and Sanderson proved the most successful Briton who did both in all events alongside decathlon runner-up Daley Thompson. She was nowhere near giving Fuchs a challenge and the latter broke the European record with a huge 69.16m throw.and won by the six and half metres that Sanderson took Commonwealth gold. Sanderson though had the huge consolation of winning Britain’s first ever European throwing medal.

Europe v West Germany, Stuttgart, June 5, 1980
1st 69.80m (UK record)

Sanderson added two metres to her Commonwealth record and had Fuchs not thrown 69.96m a few weeks earlier it would have been a world record throw. On this form she was expected to challenge for gold in the Moscow Olympics but she suffered a terrible loss of form and threw over 20 metres less (48.76m) and failed to get through qualifying as Cuba’s Maria Colon won gold with a 68.40m throw.

European Cup Heptathlon, Brussels, July 11-12, 1981
2nd 6125 (UK record)

In 1981 she reconfirmed her position as world No.2 in the javelin with a 68.86m throw but she also showed what a brilliant all-round sportswoman she was and how more athletic she was than the average world-class javelin thrower. A 13.72 hurdles was followed by a 1.63m high jump, 12.78m shot, 24.89 200m, 5.97m long jump and she finished with a 2:26.20 800m as she smashed her UK record. Only the Olympic and world bronze medallist Sabine Everts (6350) got the better of her and this ranked her 15th all-time at the end of the 1981 season.

Tarmac Edinburgh Games, March 26, 1983
1st 73.58m (UK record)

Having missed virtually all of 1982 with a serious injury, she suffered her first ever loss after 18 wins to the five-years younger Fatima Whitbread but she came back a week later to produce her first ever 70m throw with a Commonwealth record 70.58 and then took three metres off it here.

Throwing into a strong headwind (the 100m reading was 8.5m/sec!) on the first round she added seven metres to Fuchs 10-year-old Scottish all-comers’ record 66.10m which at the time was a world record and went third all-time just over a metre down on Tiina Lillak’s current world mark of 74.76m. Whitbread threw a PB 68.36m in second. In the World Championships in Helsinki, Sanderson could only finish fourth (64.76m) to Whitbread’s second (69.14m).

Olympics Los Angeles, August 6, 1984
1st 69.56m

She had lost to Whitbread twice in the build up but without the East Germans who were missing because of the boycott, she was one of the clear favourites. After her harrowing demise in 1980, there were no similar nerves here and an opening Olympic record throw of 69.56m proved sufficient for gold though world champion Lillak threw 69.00m to go close while Whitbread gained a further British medal with 67.14m. With this gold, Sanderson became the first ever British thrower – male or female – to win Olympic gold and the first Afro-Caribbean woman to win a gold for Britain.

Commonwealth Games, Edinburgh, July 31, 1986
1st 69.80m

After Sanderson’s Olympic triumph, Whitbread normally got the better of her but this was was probably the best contest between the pair and Sanderson scored a highly satisfactory victory over her English team-mate Whitbread. In most of her best competitions, Sanderson usually started strongly but here it was Whitbread who in command as she opened with a 65.60m, 65.50m and 68.54m compared to Sanderson’s 59.14m, 60.14m and a no throw.

The latter improved to 66.30m but again Whitbread had the best throw of the round with 67.12m.
It only takes one throw though to win and Sanderson’s fifth throw was a near perfect 69.80m compared to her rival’s 66.14m. Whitbread made it five rounds of six in her favour with a 66.42m final throw but despite her better series had to settle for second as Sanderson fouled her last throw.

A few weeks later Whitbread won the European title in 76.32m (after a world record 77.44m in qualifying) with Sanderson injured and unable to compete. Whitbread also won the following year’s world title with 76.54m with Sanderson fourth (67.54m).

Commonwealth Games, Auckland, February 1, 1990
1st 65.72m

Because of an Achilles injury, she failed to make the Olympic final in Seoul but two years later she comfortably won the Games gold, her task made easier with Whitbread being injured and unfit and unable to take up her England team place. Sanderson opened with a 60.20 before her big winning throw coming in the second round and she also had a 61.60 final throw in excess of runner-up Sue Howland who threw 61.18m. It gave her her third Commonwealth gold.

European Cup Final, Frankfurt, June 29, 1991
1st 65.18m

The distance was not huge but for the first time she defeated Olympic champion and world record-holder Peter Felke, who had upped the record to a mind-boggling 80.00m and it was appropriate this was our 10th choice, 14 years after her world-class breakthrough in the competition which was our first choice. It was actually the Soviet’s Irina Kostyuchenkova with 64.56m who was second with the off-colour Felke only throwing 63.18m.

The following year Sanderson became the first Briton to compete in a fifth Olympics where at the age of 36 she finished a fine fourth (63.58m) then had her last major win with a World Cup victory in Havana in 61.86m. She carried on competing and just missed out on the final in the Atlanta Olympics (a record sixth Olympics) at the age of 40 finishing 14th in qualifying with a 58.86m throw but she did achieve a 64.06m that year.

She won the British title for the last time in 1997 with a 58.30m throw. Amazingly that meant she was the only athlete to win at the inaugural UK Championships in 1977 and the very last one, 20 years later when it was held as a World Championships trial!