Rand, first British Olympic women’s gold medallist, dies at age 86

LONDON (Agencies): Former Olympic long jump champion Mary Rand, the first British woman to win three medals at a single Olympic Games, has died at the age of 86. Rand won gold in the long jump, silver in the pentathlon and bronze in the 4×100 metres relay at the 1964 Tokyo ⁠Olympics. “Team GB is saddened to hear of the death of Olympic champion Mary Rand,” UK Athletics said in a statement on Friday. “From a young age, Rand was a trailblazer. “She was just 17 when she set her first British record in the pentathlon, making her major championship debut ⁠a few weeks later, when she won long jump silver at the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.” Rand set a long jump world record of 6.76 meters ⁠in Tokyo. “Inspired by Rand’s opening-day gold … the squad went on to claim 12 medals in total,” UK ⁠Athletics said. “If you talk to Ann Packer (Rand’s roommate in Tokyo and Olympic champion in the ⁠800m), she will say, ‘Mary came back and she’d won a gold and it inspired everybody’.”