In 1963, athlete Dorothy Hyman was voted Sportsview Personality of the Year or, in other words, BBC Personality of the Year, largely in recognition of her achievements at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia in late 1962. Hyman topped the poll ahead of swimmer Bobby McGregor, who broke the world record for the 100m freestyle twice at Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) National Championships, and racing driver Jim Clark, who won seven Grands Prix and his first Formula One World Drivers’ Championship with three races to spare.
The best British female sprinter of her era, and one of the greatest of all time, Hyman was still only 17 when, alongside Heather Armitage, June Paul and Madeleine Weston, she won a gold medal in the women’s 4 x 110yd relay at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, setting a new world record of 45.37 seconds in the process. She subsequently won a silver medal in the women’s 4 x 100m relay at the 1958 European Athletics Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, silver again in the women’s 100m at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and bronze in the women’s 200m at the same Games.
In 1962, though, Hyman won six more medals, three at the European Athletics Championships in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and three more in the aforementioned British Empire and Commonwealth Games. In Belgrade, in September, she won the gold medal in the women’s 100m and in Perth, in November, two more, in the women’s 100yd and women’s 200yd events. In so doing, she interrupted the Australian dominance of both events, which had not been won by a non-Australian since 1934 and 1938, respectively.
Alongside Daphne Arden, Mary Rand and Janet Simpson, Hyman also won a silver medal in the women’s 4 x 100m relay at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. In a memorable final, all three medallists, Poland, the United States and Great Britain broke the previous world record. Hyman retired from competitive athletics in 1964, aged just 23, although she did come out of retirement, briefly, to compete at the Women’s Amateur Athletic Association (WAAA) Championships in 1969.