Lillian Barbara Board, MBE (13 December 1948 – 26 December 1970) was an athlete from Great Britain. She won the silver medal in the 400 metres at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and two gold medals at the 1969 European Championships in Athletics in Athens, Greece. Her career was cut short in 1970 when she developed the colorectal cancer that would claim her life within months.
Board was born in Durban on 13 December 1948. Her parents, Ge...
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Lillian Barbara Board, MBE (13 December 1948 – 26 December 1970) was an athlete from Great Britain. She won the silver medal in the 400 metres at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and two gold medals at the 1969 European Championships in Athletics in Athens, Greece. Her career was cut short in 1970 when she developed the colorectal cancer that would claim her life within months.
Board was born in Durban on 13 December 1948. Her parents, George and Frances Board, had emigrated from Manchester, England, to South Africa in April 1947, along with their son George Alfred. Growing homesick shortly after the birth of Lillian and her fraternal twin sister, Irene, the family moved back to Manchester in February 1950.
In 1956, the family moved to Ealing, west London, where Lillian and Irene, then aged 7, started studying at Drayton Green School.
In 1960, at the age of 11, Lillian and her sister moved to Grange Secondary Modern Girls' School, also in Ealing, and now part of The Ellen...
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