Muriel Pletts

The daughter of an Army 400 metres champion, Muriel Petts was the only Northerner in the British women’s athletics squad at the 1948 London Olympics. She qualified for the Games on the back of a third place in the WAAA 100 metres behind Winifred Jordan and Doris Batter. However, it was with Dorothy Manley, Margaret Walker and Maureen Gardner that Pletts finished fourth, just 2/10ths of a second off the bronze medal, in the 4 x 100 metres relay.

A Bradford book-keeper, Petts was a former Yorkshire and Northern Counties 100 yards champion, but her best performance in the WAAAs was second to June Foulds-Paul in the 100 metres in 1951, when Petts also finished third in the 200 metres. Having pulled a muscle shortly before the 1948 Olympic final which resulted in her running in pain, it was another pulled muscle that kept her out of the 1952 Olympics. However, despite the disappointment of not winning an Olympic medal, her daughter Sue Hearnshaw made up for that, by winning the bronze medal in the long jump at the 1984 Olympics.

Personal Best: 100 – 12.5 (1951).