Jean Desforges

Jean Catherine Pickering (née Desforges; 4 July 1929 – 25 March 2013) was a female track and field athlete from Great Britain, who competed mainly in the 80 metres hurdles and long jump.

She won bronze medals at the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games and is the only British woman to have won gold medals at the European Athletics Championships in both a track and a field event (4 × 100 m relay in 1950, long jump in 1954). During her career she set British records in the women's pentathlon and the long jump.

She and her husband, Ron Pickering, had a lasting impact on British athletics, particularly through the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund, which provides support to young track and field athletes. Their son, Shaun Pickering, became an Olympian and a Commonwealth Games medallist, competing in the shot put.

Athletics career Born in Forest Gate, London, she made her international debut at the age of eighteen, competing in the 80 m hurdles. 1952, 1953 and 1954), the long jump title twice (1953 and 1954), and the pentathlon title twice (1953 and 1954).

She ended her career with personal bests of 11.1 seconds for both the 100-yard dash and the 80 m hurdles.

Family and foundation She married Ron Pickering, a prominent athletics coach and television commentator, on 23 October 1954, in Forest Gate, London. The couple had two children, a daughter (Kim) in 1958, and a son (Shaun Pickering) in 1961 who went on to athletic success in his own right.

Her husband's death in 1991 led her to create the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund to help support athletics in Britain at a grass-roots level. By 2013, the Memorial Fund had given out £2.0 million in grants to young athletes, coaches and athletics groups. Such was the breadth of the fund's support, around 75% of the British track and field team had been Ron Picking Memorial Fund grant recipients earlier in their career, among them Olympic champions Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis, Christine Ohuruogu and Greg Rutherford.

She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Years Honours List for her services to athletics. She was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011.