A former Coombe girl and Olympic gold medallist will pop into Coombe Girls’ School to give an inspirational talk to students next week.

Ann Packer, an athletics champion who broke the 800m world record in her first race, will visit the Clarence Avenue school on Wednesday, November 20, to talk life, dreams and sport to year 7 students.

The former New Malden resident won the women’s 800m race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, despite only running the distance five times before in practice and entering the race on a whim after settling for silver in her preferred race of 400m.

The sporting legend even previously taught sport at the school ahead of her Olympic glory.

A spokeswoman from Coombe Girls’ said: “Each year the PE department arranges a visit from a sportsperson to come in to speak about their sporting journey. Coombe is delighted that former Coombe Girl Ann Packer will be returning to speak to the students.

“Ann is a sporting legend; she went on to win a gold and silver medal and even came back to Coombe to show them off – she had a great photo in the paper where she was sitting on the outside wall.”

The Surrey Comet reported on the homecoming of the Olympic hero when she returned to school on November 2, 1964, when she was given a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums in assembly following her sporting success.

The report said: “The cheers that rang through the school hall came not from hero-worship, but from a feeling that ‘it’s our Miss Packer’.

“And Ann herself, a slim trim figure standing amid her pupils with her Olympic medals around her neck, might almost have been taken as a sixth former herself.”

Ann married a fellow athlete, silver medallist and England captain of the 1964 men’s Olympic team, Robbie Brightwell, and they went on to have three sons.

She has now moved away from New Malden and lives with her family in Cheshire.

 

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