Javelin legend delivers powerful message on behalf of children’s care system as fellow athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson finishes third in race to win main accolade
Fatima Whitbread stole the show at the 70th annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year show on Tuesday (Dec 19) after the former javelin world record-holder was given the Helen Rollason award “for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity”.
Thirty-six years after being named BBC sports personality of 1987, Whitbread took to the stage to deliver an emotional speech on behalf of the children’s care system.
On a night where heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson finished third behind footballer Mary Earps and cricketer Stuart Broad in the race for the main sports personality of 2023 accolade, Whitbread received a standing ovation at the event in Salford before urging the Government to do more to support struggling young people.
KJT and partner Andy Pozzi (Getty)
Whitbread grew up in the care system in the 1960s before eventually meeting her stepmother, Margaret Whitbread, who also became her coach as they won world and European titles.
Fellow athletics greats, Lady Mary Peters and Colin Jackson, were on hand to present Whitbread with her award. The former javelin thrower then told the audience she had known Rollason, the BBC journalist who died in 1999. “Helen was a friend and I remember she rang me and asked if I’d be her first international athlete to interview, shortly after I’d won the world title in 1987,” said Whitbread.
She added: “I stand here representing the care system sector to celebrate our young children and the remarkable resilience they show. They are our future so if we can invest in them from an early age it will show what and who they – and society as a whole – can become.”
She continued: “I’m calling for fundamental change where the future for them is safer, happier and healthier and that they can reach their full potential one day. We all have a moral and ethical responsibility to help these children who live in the care system.”
Whitbread had even arranged for a number of young people who are from the care system to be in the audience. In a rare position on prime time television to deliver her message, there was no stopping her now either as she enjoyed a full four minutes to speak before presenter Gabby Logan skilfully interrupted her to keep the programme on schedule.
“In the 60 years since I was in the care system, I’ve seen a lot of governments come and go and not a lot has changed,” Whitbread added. “They’ve kicked that tin can down the road time and time again. So I’m hoping you can all help work together to deliver a better future for the children.”
Whitbread urged people to visit her website called Fatima’s UK Campaign, where they can find out more and potentially donate.
Her son Ryan was also in the audience and said of his mum: “I think this is why she’s a brilliant mum, because she knows what a child needs. Her message is that every child deserves a safe and happy childhood.”
Fatima Whitbread (Mark Shearman)
Few athletes can match the rags-to-riches rise of Whitbread. Unwanted by her parents and abandoned as a baby, she was treated for malnourishment – an extraordinary start for someone who would go on to become one of the world’s strongest athletes.
She spent 14 years in children’s homes and suffered frequent hunger pangs during her early years. “I didn’t know if I had a mummy or a daddy and I experienced physical and sexual abuse.”
Somehow, though, she rose to become world record-holder and world champion in the javelin and a household name in the UK.
Some would say it was destiny. During a lesson in school she was told about Atalanta, a heroine of Greek mythology who could beat most men in a footrace and throw a spear further than they could shoot an arrow. The story inspired her and, coincidentally, her next lesson was PE, where she developed an interest in throwing the javelin.
Fatima Whitbread (Mark Shearman)
Soon afterwards, she went to her athletics club to pursue it further and was put into contact with Margaret, a former javelin thrower turned coach. They hit it off and their coaching relationship endured during her career. More than that, the young athlete moved into the Whitbread house in Essex, adopted the surname and began to regard her as a mum. “Together as mum and daughter, coach and athlete, we conquered the world,” she said.
The child who had suffered from malnutrition gradually began to become stronger as she trained for the javelin during her teenage years. In domestic competition she had the perfect target too in the shape of Tessa Sanderson, the UK No.1 who was five years older.
During her early years in the event Whitbread struggled to beat Sanderson and lost to her 18 times on the trot in competitions but at the 19th attempt she beat her nemesis to take the UK title in 1983.
Fatima Whitbread (Mark Shearman)
That same year Whitbread really began to make a name for herself. At the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki she scraped into the final as the last qualifier with her third throw but in the opening round of the final she threw 69.14m. “I had a fighter’s instinct,” she says, “which I believe I got from the children’s homes.”
The mark survived as the leading throw for most of the contest until Finland’s Tiina Lillak, who was roared on by her home crowd, unleashed a 70.82m effort to overtake the Briton with her final throw.
READ MORE: Fatima Whitbread’s Helsinki 1983 memories
The following year Sanderson won Olympic gold as Whitbread took bronze in Los Angeles. But Whitbread’s finest moments were yet to come.
At the European Championships in Stuttgart in 1986 Whitbread became the first British thrower to achieve a world record when she threw a huge 77.44m at just gone 9am in the qualifying round. Amazingly it was also her first UK record and she went on to throw 76.32m in the final to take gold ahead of the East German Petra Felke.
In 1987 the improving Felke regained the world record but Whitbread took gold at the World Championships in Rome with a best of 76.64m. By now Whitbread was one of the British public’s favourite sporting successes, not only due to her world record-breaking and gold medal-winning habit but her ‘Whitbread wiggle’ celebration. The 1987 campaign was capped off in style, too, when she was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Fatima Whitbread (C4)
Since then she has appeared on television challenges like I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins (above), whereas on Tuesday night at “SPOTY” she added a prestigious and memorable award to a rich lifelong list of achievements.
Athlete winners of the BBC Sports Personality prize…
1954 Chris Chataway
1955 Gordon Pirie
1963 Dorothy Hyman
1964 Mary Rand
1968 David Emery
1972 Mary Peters
1974 Brendan Foster
1978 Steve Ovett
1979 Seb Coe
1982 Daley Thompson
1983 Steve Cram
1987 Fatima Whitbread
1991 Liz McColgan
1993 Linford Christie
1995 Jonathan Edwards
2002 Paula Radcliffe
2004 Kelly Holmes
2017 Mo Farah
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