Anne Cotterill

The daughter of a Watford builder, Anne Cotterill went to the town´s grammar school and was a member of the Watford Swimming Club. She took up competitive swimming as a 14-year-old and soon impressed. By the end of 1962 Cotterill had appeared in both the European Championships and British Empire and Commonwealth Games. At the Europeans she won the 4×100 m medley relay bronze medal with team-mates Linda Ludgrove, Anita Lonsbrough, and Diana Wilkinson, and later that year at Perth (Australia) won a silver in both the 4×110 yards medley relay and the individual 110 yards butterfly, behind world record holder Mary Beth Stewart of Canada.

Cotterill added another medley relay bronze at the 1966 Europeans and, in between her two European medals, she competed in the medley relay and 100m butterfly at the Tokyo Olympics without medalling. She did, however, win her only individual ASA title that year, when she won the 110 yards butterfly. She had been runner-up in 1962 and third in 1963, behind winner Mary Beth Stewart.

Cotterill twice broke the British 100- and 110-yards butterfly record in 1964. Shortly after the Tokyo Games she curtailed her competitive swimming career to concentrate on her medical studies. In 1971 she graduated from St. Mary´s Hospital and subsequently became a general practitioner (GP). Cotterill married Brian Elvy the year before her graduation. Cotterill retired as a GP in 1998 and became a counsellor for the Cruse Bereavement Support Organisation.