Pat Jones

Educated at a Worthing school, Pat Jones took up athletics seriously in 1959 after joining Worthing Harriers and within six months had won the Sussex County 220 yards and pentathlon titles. She went on to win many more Sussex titles before taking a job as a physical education teacher at Dudley and won the first of 12 Midland County titles in 1964 after joining Birchfield Harriers, including five consecutive 100 metre hurdle titles and four consecutive 200 hurdle titles. Jones was also the Midlands pentathlon champion three times between 1965 and 1968.

Jones collected seven WAAA hurdles titles; 80m and 100m in both 1965 and 1967, and 200 m in 1964 and 1966-67. She also finished second to Mary Peters in the pentathlon in 1965. Although she never won a WAAA Indoor title, Jones was third in the 60 yards hurdles in 1965 and 1966, and also third in the 200 metres flat in 1966. In winning the AAA 200 hurdles title in 1964, she did so in a world record 27.9 seconds, and that came after spending most of the 1963 season with a leg in plaster.

Having made her Great Britain début against France in 1966, Jones won the 80 metres hurdles in the 1967 European Cup semi-final at Oslo in a Bislet Stadium track record of 10.6, as Britain reached the final. Jones could then only finish second to the Olympic champion Karin Balzer, however, as the British women finished fifth overall. Jones was named the WAAA Athlete of the Year for 1967.

The following year, Jones was selected for the Mexico Olympics and was one of three Britons in the 80m metres hurdles, but none progressed beyond the first round. Jones later became a physical education lecturer at Leicester University.

Personal Best: 80H – 10.6 (1967).