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Originally competing for Great Britain, the country of her birth, Fiona
May successfully resurrected her struggling career after immigrating to
Italy, and subsequently competing for her newly-adopted country. She
followed her 1995 season, when she had won the world title, with an
equally successful year in 1996. On 25 May, Fiona won her second
Italian title at Bologna, with a best jump of 6.93m in a series which
included a wind-assisted jump of 7.12m.
Later that year, at the Olympic
Games in Atlanta, May produced the best jump of 6.85m in the qualifying
round on 1 August. However, in the final the following day, Chioma
Ajunwa (Nigeria), who had just returned to competition following a
four-year drugs suspension, leapt 7.12m in the first round. Fiona
responded in the second round with a jump of 7.02m, which was short of
Ajunwa's leap, but it was a new personal best for May, and the first
time she had exceeded seven metres. Nobody else was able to better
either of these two marks, which meant that Fiona earned an Olympic
silver medal (see photo above) for her second round jump. May
got some revenge over Ajunwa at the 1997 World Indoor Championships in
Paris, where she won the gold medal with a jump of 6.86m, compared with
the Nigerianís second place effort of 6.80m.
At the 1997 World
Championships in Athens, Ajunwa again appeared to be the major
opposition when she led the qualifying round by a huge margin, but
injury prevented her from being a competitive factor in the final, where
May took an early lead with her first round jump of 6.91m. Fiona was
unable to improve upon this distance during the remainder of the
competition, but the mark held up sufficiently to win her the bronze
medal. (Ron Casey)
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