Ethel Catherwood

Ethel Hannah Catherwood (April 28, 1908 – September 26, 1987) was a Canadian track and field athlete who won a gold medal in the high jump at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. She competed as a member of Canada's first Olympic women's track and field team, later known as the "Matchless Six", which took part in the first Olympic Games to include women's athletics in 1928. Catherwood won the event with a jump of 1.59 metres, becoming the first woman in Olympic history to win a gold medal in the high jump.

Before the Olympics, Catherwood was one of Canada's leading high jumpers and held several national titles in the event. Known for her height and athletic ability, she dominated women's high jump competition in Canada during the late 1920s and was widely regarded as one of the strongest competitors entering the inaugural Olympic women's high jump event.

After the 1928 Olympics Catherwood retired from international competition while still in her early twenties. Her victory at Amsterdam formed part of Canada's strong performance in the first Olympic program to include women's athletics, in which members of the Matchless Six won multiple medals and helped establish Canada as a leading nation in early international women's track and field competition.

Early life The sixth of nine children, Catherwood was born on April 28, 1908, in Hannah, North Dakota, United States to Joseph Jr. Catherwood and Ethel Jane Hannah.

Catherwood was raised and educated in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, where she excelled at baseball, basketball and track and field athletics.

Her father recognized her talents early and set up a training area for his daughter by constructing a high-jump pit in their backyard. When she was sixteen, he made her a wager: he set the bar higher than any female athlete had officially cleared before. She sailed over it and he had to pay up.

By 1926, at eighteen years old, Catherwood was emerging on the provincial and national stage. At Bedford Road Collegiate, she starred in basketball, developing a looping one-handed shot and, on one occasion, scoring a city-record 49 points less than a year before her Olympic victory. Later that year, on Labour Day in 1926, she broke the British-held world record in the high jump with a clearance of five feet, two and seven-sixteenths inches. By the end of 1926, she was regarded as one of the leading female high jumpers in the world and had begun attracting national media attention, earning the nickname "Saskatoon Lily."

Contemporary accounts suggest that Catherwood was not regarded by teammates as a particularly rigorous about her training. Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld later recalled that she "did no great amount of training" and described a typical day as one spent resting with rum-and-butter toffee and a ukulele.

Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern Olympics, wasn't happy about it. He made his feelings public in July 1928, while Catherwood was still preparing for the start of the Games on 5 August 1928. He wasn't alone. There was a longstanding belief that women lacked the strength and stamina required of competitors. Even so, her position at the top had slipped only weeks before Amsterdam, when Dutch jumper Lien Gisolf surpassed her with a leap of .

Post-Olympic athletic career Following her victory at the 1928 Summer Olympics, Catherwood continued to compete in track and field at the national level.

Only a few months later, she married American diamond drilling expert Byron McKenna Mitchell crowds sang "O Canada" as a Moth biplane performed a flyover. On return home, she had received a $3000 education trust fund to put towards her music studies and she chose instead to continue with piano study

She gave her last formal interview in 1965. on 26 September 1987 in Grass Valley, California, at age 79.

Legacy and honours

Athletic achievements

Olympic gold medal in the women's high jump at the 1928 Summer Olympics. First Canadian athlete, of any gender, to win Olympic gold in the high jump.