Martyn Woodroffe

Wales’s Martyn Woodroffe was one of the world’s best butterfly swimmers in the latter part of the 1960s. He started swimming at the age of eight and five years later made his Wales international début, and was, in 1965, the ASA boys 110 butterfly champion. Woodroffe first represented Great Britain against the Netherlands in 1967 when he also won that year’s English Schools title and became the first Briton to break the one-minute barrier for the 100 metres butterfly.

Woodroffe won the first of 14 senior individual ASA titles in 1967 when he captured the 220 yards butterfly title. Between 1968-70 he won the 110 fly, 220 fly, 220 medley and 440 medley three times each, and, for good measure, he was the 1969 ASA 220 yards freestyle champion. His 1968 440 medley title was shared with Alan Kimber after the two men dead-heated in the final.

Selected for the 1968 Mexico Olympics, Woodroffe competed in five events but reached just one final, the 200 metres butterfly, where he won the silver medal as Britain’s only swimming medallist of the Games. Behind him in eighth place was the eventual nine-time Olympic gold medallist Mark Spitz. Woodroffe broke the British 100 and 200 metres British butterfly records several times and at Santa Clara, USA, in July 1969 set a European 200 record of 2:07-8.

Woodroffe, who had represented Wales at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games at Kingston without winning a medal, went on to win three medals at Edinburgh four years later when he was captain of the Welsh team. Woodroffe won silver in the 200 fly, bronze in the 200 individual medley and bronze in the 4x100 medley relay. A proud Welshman, the relay bronze was, as Woodroffe said a few years later: “Probably the second best moment of my swimming career. We got a bronze medal. It’s the only time we have ever beaten England.” A few months after the Edinburgh Games, Woodroffe brought his international career to a close after finishing seventh in the 200 fly at the Barcelona European Championships. He had been appointed captain of the GB squad for the Championships after Tony Jarvis was relieved of his duties.

Woodroffe studied physical education at Madeley College near Stoke-on-Trent and became a schoolteacher. After his competitive swimming days, he coached swimming in his adopted hometown at Warrington Swimming Club before moving to the City of Manchester Club, then Norwich Penguins for one season (1984/85), before returning to Warrington to become coach to the local council’s swimming training scheme. In 1994, Woodroffe became director of swimming in Scotland, having previously been the national performance director for Swim Wales.

Some years after his retirement, Woodroffe compared modern-day swimmers to those from his era and said: “Today, our swimmers are surrounded by sports psychologists, sports physiologists, a doctor, a nutritionist, all of those things. My nutritionist was my mum, my sports psychologist was my dad.” Adding that: “the key thing was hard work, and that was the same in 1968 as it is today.” Woodroffe was a keen Rugby League fan and was a supporter of Warrington Wolves.

Woodroffe was named BBC Wales Sports Personality of The Year for 1968. He was the first swimmer to win the award since it was launched in 1954, and through 2025 remained the only swimmer to be so honoured.