Tessa Sanderson

Theresa ("Tessa") Ione Sanderson CBE (born 14 March 1956) is a former British javelin thrower and heptathlete who competed in the javelin competition in every one of the six Olympics from 1976–1996 winning the Gold medal in 1984. She is the second Track & Field athlete, after Lia Manoliu (discus), to compete at six Olympics.

Sanderson was born in St Elizabeth, Jamaica of Ghanaian ancestry, she later emigrated to Wolverhampton, England. She was the UK's leading javelin thrower from the mid-1970s, winning silver in the 1978 European championships and gold in the Commonwealth Games three times (1978, 1986, 1990), but was eclipsed during the 1980s by the up-and-coming Fatima Whitbread,with whom she shared a long standing rivalry.

When Sanderson won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in the javelin, becoming the first British black woman ever to win Olympic gold, her victory was quite unexpected. In the end, her career outlasted Whitbread's, and she competed at senior international level until 1996. She served as Vice-Chairman of Sport England from 1999 to 2005.

source: wikipedia