Olympian should have been a Dame
Yvette Williams had a trailing legacy of titles in athletics, but her quiet wish would have been to become a Dame, her brother says.
Roy Williams said it was disappointing that the first woman to win a gold medal for New Zealand died last Saturday without the title.
Yvette won the gold medal by setting an Olympic record in long jump of 6.24m – 1cm shorter than Fanny BlankersKoen’s world record at the time.
She also had four Commonwealth Games gold medals to her name, winning the 1950 long jump gold in Auckland – a title she defended four years later in Vancouver while also winning the discus and shot put.
‘‘She should have been made a Dame,’’ said Williams, who himself won the decathlon at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Jamaica. ‘‘There are many other New Zealanders who have become Sirs and Dames and they did far less than her.
‘‘She not only won gold in Helsinki, but she taught for 14 years. She taught many people like Barbara Kendall, who became an Olympic gold medallist, and she became an important figure in sport.’’
Yvette never admitted she would have liked the title, however, Roy said she was modest and always understated herself.
‘‘She used to say she didn’t want to be a Dame, but I know deep down that it would have been a great honour.’’
Aside from athletics, Yvette also had talents in netball and basketball.
Roy said she only gave up netball because she started to get sore shins from running up and down the hard asphalt and concrete courts and instead changed to basketball. Within a few years she had became a New Zealand representative in netball and basketball, with her athletics talents showing themselves shortly after.
‘‘She only got into athletics by chance. She left high school at 17 and went to work in Dunedin pricing doctors’ prescriptions in an office. The girl next to her became friends and suggested she take up athletics during the summer to keep her fitness up for netball.
‘‘Yvette didn’t even know what athletics was, she didn’t know what the Olympics was either – this was in 1947 — five years before she won the Olympic gold medal. She could have been a world champion in any sport she chose to compete in, and I believe with her temperament and her fearlessness she could have represented New Zealand in three-day eventing.’’
On April 25, Yvette would have turned 90, instead she will be remembered at her funeral on April 26 at 12pm at St Columba Presbyterian Church in Botany, Auckland.
The funeral will be open to the public and more than 800 people are expected to attend.
‘‘I got a call from Jacinda Ardern suddenly out of the blue the other day and she expressed her condolences on behalf of herself and the Government and we ended up talking for 10 to 15 minutes,’’ Roy said.
‘‘Yvette was my inspiration. I would never have achieved what I did, which is nothing compared to what Yvette did, had it not been for her encouragement and a lot of people have said the same.’’
Yvette Corlett
athlete b April 25, 1929 d April 13, 2019
Yvette Corlett, who has died aged 89, was the first New Zealand woman to win a gold medal at an Olympic Games.
A pioneer and legend in New Zealand sport, Corlett, who was just 12 days off her 90th birthday, won the gold medal in the long jump at the 1952 Helsinki Games.
She recently recounted that historic day. ‘‘After having two no-jumps I had the fear maybe I would have another no-jump again, and everybody back home would be so disappointed and I would have a fear to go back home again. Fortunately, the third jump was legal and put me in fourth place.
‘‘The top six competitors could have another three jumps and on the fourth jump I hit the board and, first of all, the judge put up a red flag and then changed it for the white. The New Zealand supporters who were in the stand came down on to the track and carried me shoulder high from the pitch with the New Zealand flag draped behind me.’’
Standing on top of the podium and seeing the New Zealand flag go up, with the national anthem playing, was the highlight of her career, she said.
Her jump of 6.24 metres was also an Olympic record, and two years later in Gisborne she leaped a further 4cm to break the women’s long jump world record.
At the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1950, she won gold in the long jump and silver in the javelin. She took golds in the long jump, discus and shot put at the 1954 Vancouver Games.
Born in Dunedin on Anzac Day 1929, she played several sports at Otago Girls’ High School, making the top netball team and going on to play for Otago and the South Island.
Shin troubles pushed her towards basketball, in which she played for New Zealand, and helped Otago claim a national title. Her late husband Buddy Corlett, who died in 2015, was a national basketballer.
Her interest in athletics followed an evening visit to Otago Ladies Amateur Athletics Club.
Her first national title was in shot put in 1947, before she turned her attention to long jump, which she won in 1948. In total, Corlett won 21 national titles in the shot put, discus, javelin, 80-metre hurdles and long jump.
Long-time family friend and former Olympic athlete Les Mills said Corlett’s win in Helsinki all those years ago was ‘‘dramatic’’.
‘‘She had hurt herself in the second jump. She was under enormous pressure and was looking down the barrel of getting nothing.’’
She qualified in the next jump and won gold on her fourth.
‘‘She did not have enormous natural talent, but she worked hard
with good coaches. She always gave it 110 per cent.
‘‘She had absolute tunnel vision – to look at her goal and not divert from it. She was absolutely fixed in her mind that she was going to do well. She had enormous mental capability to train hard day after day after day, winter and summer.’’
Corlett was gracious and humble, with not a bad word to say about anyone, Mills added.
‘‘She was an absolute lady who was never arrogant about her achievements.’’
In the 1953 New Year honours, she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services in women’s athletics. She was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to athletics in the 2011 New Year honours.
She was twice named the New Zealand Sportsman of the Year, in 1950 and 1952, and in 1990 she became one of the first people inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, officially recognised as one of sport’s original trailblazers. In 2000, she was voted Otago Sportsperson of the Century. The Yvette Williams Retirement Village in the Dunedin suburb of Roslyn is named in her honour.
Analytical Wellington sports writer Peter Heidenstrom controversially rated Corlett as his New Zealand Athlete of the Century, ahead of the great Peter Snell, who won three Olympics golds across two Olympic Games.
Over the years, Corlett has made a considerable contribution to the community, which included organising a campaign in the mid1950s that raised many thousands of pounds for the new YMCA facility in central Auckland. She was coach at the Panmure Athletic Club in the early 1960s, and in 1967 was one of the founders of the Pakuranga Athletic Club.
She taught physical education for 15 years, firstly at Otahuhu College for two years and then at Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland.
One of her pupils was Sarah Ulmer, Olympic cycling gold medallist and world record holder.
Corlett also worked with Special Olympians. Nine years ago she officially opened the Yvette Williams Track, an all-weather track at Lloyd Elsmore Park in Pakuranga.
Described as a person of great decency and unlimited compassion and respect for all she came in contact with, Corlett was generous with her time in sharing her expertise and experiences.
Along with Buddy, she had a love of horse racing and, on Saturday, April 13, she watched from home as the champion mare Winx – wearing number 7, her favourite number – win the final race of her career. Corlett died two hours later. – By Murray McKinnon