Nearly a century after she attained world-wide success and fame, one of Saskatoon’s iconic athletes has been immortalized in the hallways of the high school where she began her athletic journey.
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Nearly a century after she attained world-wide success and fame, one of Saskatoon’s iconic athletes has been immortalized in the hallways of the high school where she began her athletic journey.
At a special ceremony this week at Bedford Road Collegiate, the national significance of Ethel Catherwood, a world-record holder in high jump and 1928 Olympic gold medallist, was recognized by Parks Canada and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
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After shining in track and field, basketball and baseball while at Bedford Road, Catherwood won a gold medal in the high jump at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games — the first to include women’s track and field.
She is the only Canadian woman in the 20th century to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual track and field event.
At those Games, she was famously part of the Matchless Six, a group of female athletes who claimed four medals for Canada at the 1928 Olympics, the first Games where women were allowed to compete in track and field.
“At a time when women were fighting for rights and equal opportunities, Ethel Catherwood demonstrated what women could achieve in sport,” Minister Responsible for Parks Canada Steven Guilbeault said in a statement.
“As the first Canadian woman to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field, her achievements changed perspectives and helped secure the long-term participation of women in Olympic track and field.”
The Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recognizes significant persons, places, and events in the country’s history. Nearly 2,300 designations have been made nationwide.
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While Catherwood’s exploits on the athletic field should have been enough to make her a star, an equal amount of coverage — if not more — focused on her beauty, long legs and physical attributes. For a time, she was the most photographed woman on earth.
News outlets reported on her marriage status. Unsubstantiated rumours flew about a pregnancy and other relationships. It quickly became too much for her and she all but disappeared from public life for a half-century. She declined offers from Hollywood. Her last formal interview was in 1965.
She was living in such obscurity that her 1987 death in California wasn’t publicly known for eight months. Her great nephew John Godfrey grew up not even knowing of his auntie’s legendary athletic exploits.
Catherwood has been inducted into Canada’s Olympic Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame and the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame — but attended none of those ceremonies.
Her Olympic gold medal was believed for decades to have been lost or disposed of. Turns out, it was packaged away in a box among other family materials, discovered around 12 years ago and only revealed earlier this year by Godfrey to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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“It’s pretty tough to pick up a newspaper clipping from that time, and them not talk about her physical attributes, her beauty, her long legs, tall torso. All of this, every time they talked about her,” Godfrey said this week in a statement.
“As opposed to talking about her achievements and things. And I know it bothered her a lot.”
A group of Bedford Road students this week praised Catherwood, saying that “as female athletes, we want to be recognized for our athletic abilities, but there are external pressures put onto us.
“Society pushes a certain standard on how female athletes should look, when it doesn’t have any correlation to skill levels or performance. It takes away from our achievements by focusing on everything but the actual sport.
“Ethel Catherwood went through this but she fought back against it. Now she is seen as a role model for our female athletes here at Bedford.”
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