Venue: Olympic Stadium, Amsterdam. Capp.: 31,600. First ever Event.
World Record: Ethel Catherwood (Canada) 1.58m Regina, Canada, September 6, 1926 and Lien Gisolf (Netherlands), Brussels, Belgium, July 3, 1928
Unofficial World Record: Marjorie Clark (South Africa) 1.60m, London, Great Britain, June 23, 1928 and Ethel Catherwood (Canada), Halifax, Canada, July 2, 1928
Catherwood, a tall and slim (1.78/58kg) woman who had topped the
1926 world list as a 16 year-old (1.58), was the favourite to win, having
set an unratified world record of 1.60 at the beginning of July in the
Canadian Championships. She was by no means a certainty, as Gisolf
set an accepted record of 1.585 that same weekend, and Clark had
jumped 1.60 in an exhibition six weeks before the Amsterdam event.
The final took place on the last day of competition, a cold and
gloomy day, and Catherwood, the sole Canadian was taken under the
wing of the Belgian competitiors who let her use a large blanket to keep
warm in between jumps. A Toronto journalist eulogised as follows:
“The fans fell for her. A flower-like face of rare beauty. Simply clad in
pure white, she looked like a tall, strange lily – and was immediately
christened by the crowd ’the Saskatoon Lily’.” With Clark eliminated
at 1.51, the field had dwindled to three by the time 1.60 was reached,
though the height was remeasured at 1.595. Only Catherwood could
scissor over, leaving Gisolf to outjump Wiley for silver in a jump-off.
Canada
Netherlands
United States
ZAF South Africa
Germany
Belgium
France
Sweden
Romania
