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Although many athletes find difficulty in reproducing their best
performances at major championships, Sheila Carey produced the best two
runs of her life in Olympic finals. Competing under her maiden name of
Taylor, Sheila arrived at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games with a 800m
personal best of 2min 05.5sec, which she lowered to 2min 04.1sec in her
heat, and then in the final on 19 October, she reduced it again to 2min
03.8sec in finishing fourth behind Madeline Manning (USA). In 1970
Carey was a member of two world record-breaking Great Britain 4 x 800m
relay teams, but suffered a bitter disappointment at the Edinburgh
Commonwealth Games, where, after setting the fastest time in the heats,
she tripped and fell early in the first lap of the final, placing her
out of contention. Carey's last outstanding performance in her career
was in the 1500m final at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where she came into
the meet with a pre-Games best of 4min 16.2sec.
At Munich, she reduced
this to 4min 13.0sec in her heat, and then 4.07.4sec in her semi-final.
The final on 9 September was won by Lyudmila Bragina (Soviet Union),
and saw the first seven runners finish under the pre-Games world record,
including Carey, who came fifth in a new UK record of 4min 04.8sec.
Sheila had an indifferent 1973 season, although gaining selection in a
number of international matches, including the 1500m in the UK v Hungary
match at Crystal Palace on 27 August (see photo above),
where she finished second in 4min 13.4sec to compatriot Joan Allison.
Carey's last major international championships was the 1974 Commonwealth
Games in Christchurch where she was eliminated in her heat of the 800m,
and finished 11th out of 13 starters in the 1500m final. (Ron Casey.
After retiring from international athletics Carey later went on to teach in the United Kingdom, working for many years at Exhall Grange School, a school for children with sight loss and other disabilities, near Coventry in 1987. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to disability athletics.
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