Fatima ; The Autobiography of Fatima Whitbread

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It was known as our athletics family – we all felt seen, heard and embraced. Magical memories for all those that competed in those years of women’s athletics! As an athlete I was competing in an era when it was predominantly male orientated in the athletics. However, I was inspired as a young 11-year-old by Mary Peters, who won the woman’s pentathlon in the 1972 Munich Olympics. Then before her came a number of very famous British women athletes that inspired me when going through the history of woman’s athletes. Whitbread began training hard. “I started taking more responsibility for myself,” she says. “You have a whole lot of people that help you, but I’ve got to get myself out at 5am, down the gym, three times a day training, seven days a week.” She trained in a wooden shed at the bottom of the garden of a family friend. She smiles when she talks about how different facilities are now: “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I loved every minute of it.” Paul Burrell, Phil Tufnell, Amir Khan and Jordan Banjo make up the main list, though ITV has confirmed further names will make a surprise appearance throughout the series.

The influence of the WAAA in creating a mechanism for women’s athletics can be seen in Whitbread’s career. In her own words, Fatima recalls her memories of some of the women who inspired her and helped shape journey: Fatima took bronze at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and in 1986 at the European Championships took gold and became a record breaker with a throw of 77.44m which added over 2 meters to the previous world record held by Petra Felke of the GDR, making her the first British thrower to break a world record. Fatima Whitbread’s national titles include WAAA Junior Champion (U17) and 6 time WAAA Champion, along with European Junior Champion, medalling at successive Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth Games between 1982 and 1988 and breaking the women’s javelin world record in 1986.

Global Glory

She broke the world record with a throw of 77.44m in the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, becoming the first British athlete to set a world record in a throwing event.

Under her mother’s tutelage, Fatima Whitbread was able to compete in the three Olympics that held in her prime. She was able to set a world record at the 1986 athletics meet. She also triumphed at the Rome championship. She emerged the Sports Personality of the Year from the BBC. Whitbread came in for her last competitive event in the year 1989, and she was still young at the time having only celebrated her 27th birthday then. She had to face a nagging shoulder dislocation which did not go away in the next three years. Though she tried to return in 1992, the dislocation was not letting her be. Born in London to Cypriot parents, Fatima Whitbread endured a disturbed childhood after being abandoned by her mother as a baby and spent her first 14 years in a variety of care homes. Margaret and her husband eventually fostered Whitbread, who changed her surname, Vedad, by deed poll. At 14, she finally had a family, which included the Whitbreads’ two young sons. “That was amazing, the best thing that happened, to be a part of a family, which I’d always wanted,” she says. “It wasn’t straightforward, because all families have their problems. Both as mum and daughter and athlete and coach, we worked it out somehow – and we conquered the world.” Discover today's celebrity birthdays and explore famous people who share your birthday. View popular celebrities life details, birth signs and real ages.Fatima Whitbread was born on the 3rd day of March 1961 and was christened Fatima Vedad at birth. Her biological mother was of Turkish Cypriot descent while her father was a Greek Cypriot. She was not loved or wanted by her mother and was abandoned till neighbors called in a rescue team. Fatima spent the next four months after her rescue to recuperate from dehydration and malnutrition in the hospital. Fatima lived the next fourteen years of her life in halfway homes and welfare centers. Friends creator reveals Matthew Perry was ‘happy and chipper’ in final conversation before tragic death at 54 The 61-year-old won a silver medal representing Britain in the javelin throw at the Olympics in Seoul 1988, having won bronze in 1984 in Los Angeles.