Bill Tancred

William Raymond Tancred (Bill Tancred) (born 6 August 1942 ) is a leading sports administrator, academic and former international athlete.

His father would get him to read books on the subject as well, to hone the technique, a discipline not used widely in the 1950s.

Bill's father would also improvise with equipment if none were available.

He joined Ipswich Harriers and trained at the Ipswich Town training ground.

This gave him opportunities for competition within the county and also in the Eastern Counties framework.

Having represented his county, he competed in the Eastern Counties and rose quickly to domestic prominence.

Interestingly, he came 3rd in the AAA junior championships for the javelin in 1960.

His first international vest for Great Britain was in 1964 against the Benelux Countries in Ghent.

Bill Tancred also took part in three Commonwealth Games in 1966, 1970, (where he achieved the bronze medal) and 1974 (where he achieved the silver medal).

He also competed at the 1966, 1969 and 1971 European Championships.

Domestically, he set the British discus record on nineteen occasions.

He was seven times the AAA Champion having won the AAA discus title from 1966 to 1970 and 1972–1973.

He competed at the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics in the discus and won bronze and silver medals in successive Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974.

Although proud of his British and European and Commonwealth achievements, Tancred has made it clear that the pinnacle of being an athlete is to compete at the Olympic games, and in interviews recalls getting a letter signed by the Duke of Edinburgh, telling him that he had been selected to represent Great Britain in the 1968 Olympics.

He took his father, mother, friends and siblings for a meal to celebrate.

As a young athlete, he recalls being awestruck at the Olympics.

He saw Bob Beamon set the long jump record, recalled talking to athletes about a new high jump method called the Fosbury flop, witnessed the Black power salute of the American sprinters and found himself competing against his idol, Al Oerter, already the three time Olympic discus champion who won his fourth gold medal in Mexico, which he reportedly said was one for each of his daughters.

Of his own performance, Tancred has said that he felt he ought to have thrown better but a combination of over training and lack of experience in such a big arena as the Olympics were his downfall.

The discipline of waiting long periods between throws was something he had not appreciated and found hard to reconcile to a more explosive approach that he employed.

He competed at the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics in the discus, and was also selected for the shot put event in 1972 but a shoulder injury prevented him in competing.

He won the British National Indoor (AAA) Championships for the shot in 1969 and 1976.

Bill Tancred was also the first UK athlete to break the 200 ft/61m discus barrier in 1972 which was also a UK all-comers record for the event (61.94m).

One of the nineteen occasions that he broke the British record was at the AAA Championships in Crystal Palace 1972 where he won a windproof jacket as an event prize with the sponsors name on it (Nationwide Building Society).

However, he was not permitted to wear the jacket at AAA events due to the strict rules about sponsorship.

In total, Tancred represented Great Britain 55 times.

He was the British national discus champion on nine occasions and held the British record for 25 years his personal best being 64.94m in 1974.

He also competed in the shot put and remains one of the top ten British shot putters.

Athleticsweekly.com has ranked Tancred as the greatest British discus thrower of all-time by virtue of his long reign as British record-holder and profusion of AAA titles.

His mark of 64.94m in 1974, set in Loughborough on 21 July 1974, was his personal best but his British record was set after this in Woodford on 10 August 1974 at 64.32m.

This remained the best thrown by a British athlete until Richard Slaney bettered it on 1 July 1985, in Eugene, Oregon, United States, although unofficially.

Robert Weir officially broke the record in 1997.

Tancred remains sixth on the British all-time list for the discus.

He also competed in the shot and remains one of the top ten British shot putters.

Even in 2011 he could still claim to be one of the best all round throwers ever in British Athletics.

Bill Tancred was born in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan, and grew up in Felixstowe.

He was one of a number of siblings, one of his younger brothers being the athlete and strongman Pete Tancred.

As a school boy, the javelin was his main event but he developed elbow trouble and was forced to abandon this event.

His father, Adrian, believed that this was not a barrier to athletics in another discipline and Bill took up the discus in which his father coached him.

After the family moved to Ipswich from Felixstowe he would find roads with adjoining fields to throw into and would often lose the discus in the long grass.

In addition, chalk was used to draw a discus and shot circle on the road.