Wendy Burrell

Wendy Burrell started swimming as a youngster at Grange-over-Sands (Cumbria) where she was brought up. The family later moved to Carlisle, and she took up serious swimming with her father as her coach. Wendy was also a good runner at the time and took part in the English Schools Cross-country Championships.

Burrell was the 1966 girls national 110y backstroke champion and the following year won the first of many Northern Counties titles. She was third in the ASA 220 back behind Linda Ludgrove and Sylvia Platt. Burrell also made her junior international début that year and made her full GB début against Poland in 1968 when she was that year’s ASA 110- and 200 yards backstroke champion. She then went to the Mexico Olympics and reached the 200 metres final, finishing fifth, and was sixth with the GB 4x100 medley relay squad.

The highlight of Burrell´s career was in reaching the 1970 European Championships 200m backstroke final at Barcelona in a European record 2:26.2. She held the record for one day until Andrea Gyarmati (Hungary) regained the record with a 2:25.5. Burrell missed out on a medal, finishing fourth. It would be a further 16 years before a British girl set a European record, when Sarah Hardcastle did so in the 800 metres freestyle in 1986

Burrell reached the 100 and 200 backstroke finals at the 1970 Edinburgh British Commonwealth Games, finishing fifth and seventh respectively. She announced her retirement shortly afterwards when just 18-years-of-age after moving to London to study. Burrell later became a primary school teacher.