1968 Olympics 400m Women - Lillian Board

The very talented Lillian Board who met an untimely death to cancer at a very young age (I think in 1971?)

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• 1968
• Olympics
• 400m
• women
• Lillian
• Board

[becknook1]

What a great loss, I also think of Florence Griffith-Joyner also known as Flo Jo who died at 38, both these athletes were loved on both sides of the Atlantic.

[athlete5399]

I dont think Flo-Jo was loved at all! She was undre GREAT suspicion. There is no comparison with Lillian Board!

[RabCGiblet]

Thanks for adding athlete5399 actually died Boxing day 1970. Lovely runner Lillian was and did splendidly winning the silver here at 19 years old still.

But who can ever forget that Gutsy relay where she pipped the french on the line. The stuff of Legend.

Lillian Board RIP.

[clivedxb]

Alf Tupper and Lillian Board... the king and queen of British athletics.

[TheEctomorph]

[Continuing on from my previous 'post' about Miss Lillian Board]: is - monstrously unfair. I hope that Miss Board will always be remembered - even many centuries from now - as one of the great British sportswomen of the 20th century. God rest her soul.

[TheEctomorph]

The tragic death of Miss Lillian Board in December 1970 - just a few days after her 22nd birthday - proved that physical fitness is not the same thing as health. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there is no connection between fitness and health. Miss Board was unquestionably one of the fittest, most athletic women in Europe - indeed the whole world. Yet she was cruelly struck down by terminal cancer right at the beginning of her adult life ...... life can be - and very often

[TheEctomorph]

@sxitezza Very well said; very well said indeed.

[TheEctomorph]

@BaumerPaulGefreiter F**k off, you gobs****. That is a terrible thing to say. Lillian Board was a clean athlete (as well as being a highly talented and successful one). Shame on you for trying to tarnish the reputation of such a brilliant - and ill-fated - sportswoman; some 40 years after her premature and tragic death from cancer, at the very early age of 22. God rest Miss Board's soul.

[TheEctomorph]

Miss Lillian Board ...... a very talented (and ill-fated) athlete. Who knows what she might have gone on to achieve at the 1971 'Europeans' and '72 Olympics if she hadn't been struck down by a terminal illness.

It is incredible to contemplate that Miss Board was probably already suffering from cancer in September 1969, when she won a Gold medal in the 800 metres at the European Championships in Athens. She passed away just 15 short months later, on Boxing Day, 1970. God rest her soul.

[borninparis]

Colette Besson also was much loved in France and died way too young at the age of 50, I think.

[markguest36]

cant belive that anyone can compare lillan with flo-jo! lillan was natural talent not doped!

[bkey88]

@RabCGiblet - Agreed. What a lovely woman she was. I believe her fiancee eventually married Lillian's twin sister.

[valjean1ful]

Collette Besson The First !