Fatima’s best year was undoubtedly 1987 when she became World Champion and was voted sportswoman of the year. This was the second gold medal Fatima had won, the other one being gained a year earlier at the Stuttgart European Championships where she broke the world record with a javelin throw of 77.44m.
Of course, the motivational speaker did her country proud when she did appear at the Olympic Games – in 1984 in Los Angeles, Fatima Whitbread won a bronze medal and at the next Games in Seoul she got a silver. Her other medals were a silver in the World Championships in 1983 and in the Commonwealth Games she won a bronze in 1982 and a silver in 1986.
Fatima is now well-known as a TV personality and has appeared on a vast range of programmes, including Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, The Cube, I’m A Celebrity… Get Me out of Here! and Total Wipeout. The motivational speaker has also written an autobiography called Survivor, the title reflecting her extremely tough childhood in which she says she was abandoned, orphaned and abused.
