Judy Samuel

Judy Samuel was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where her father was a tea planter and merchant for the Lipton tea company. Samuel enjoyed a brief, but successful, swimming career and at the age of 14 finished second to Elspeth Ferguson in the 1958 ASA 440 yards freestyle, which led to Samuel being selected for that year´s British Empire and Commonwealth Games at Cardiff, where she failed to win a medal. She won a silver medal that year, however, as part of the Great Britain 4 × 100 metres freestyle relay team (with Ferguson, Judith Grinham, and Diana Wilkinson) at the European Championships in Budapest.

Samuel was runner-up again, to Natalie Steward, in the ASA 440 in 1959 and that year established a new English 440 record, which she lowered even further in 1960 when she was selected for the individual 400 metres at the Roma Olympics. She was eliminated after finishing fifth in a heat dominated by the American Chris von Saltza and Tineke Lagerberg of the Netherlands, who went on to win gold and bronze respectively.

Samuel retired from competitive swimming shortly after the Olympics and embarked on a career as a model after attending the famous Lucie Clayton School of Dressmaking and Fashion Design in London. Samuel married tennis player Peter Hoole in 1963, and she enjoyed playing tennis and sailing in her spare time.