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Kathy Cook was one of Great Britain's most successful sprinters, and a
prolific medallist at major championships. Competing under her maiden
name of Smallwood, Kathy's first notable success came at the 1977
European Junior Championships, where she won bronze medals in the 100m,
200m and 4 x 100m relay. The following year, Smallwood qualified for
her first Commonwealth Games, finishing third in the 200m at the
national trials in a new UK junior record of 23.16sec. At the
Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Kathy set the fastest time in the heats,
a wind-assisted 22.73sec, and followed this by also setting the fastest
time in the semi-finals, breaking her UK junior record set at the
trials with a new mark of 22.99sec.
Unfortunately, she could not
maintain this dominance in the final, where she finished fifth in a
wind-assisted time of 22.96sec. Kathy got some recompense for this
disappointment in the 4 x 100m relay, where she was a member of the
English team that easily won the gold medal. At the European
Championships held later that year in Prague, Smallwood was unlucky not
to qualify for the 200m final, when she finished fifth in her
semi-final, only 0.01sec behind the fourth place-getter. However, she
was again able to take home a medal, after the same team which had won
the 4 x 100m relay for England at Edmonton, finished second for Great
Britain in Prague. At the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Kathy qualified
for both sprint finals, finishing sixth in the 100m and fifth in the
200m.
She was also a member of the Great Britain 4 x 100m relay team
that won the bronze medal. During 1981, Kathy competed successfully in a
number of meets, including the British Meat Games in June (see photo above), the European Cup, and the World Cup in Rome. (Ron Casey)
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