Pat Lowe-Cropper

Pat Lowe was educated at the Alderman Newton’s School in Leicester before going to the local College of Art and Technology and then to the Chelsea Physical Education Training College in Eastbourne. Lowe eventually became a schoolteacher in her home city, before getting a similar post at the King Edward’s Grammar School in Birmingham, where she was a member of the crack Birchfield Harriers club.

A middle-distance runner, by the time she was 21, Lowe had won many Leicestershire titles, and she also had the honour of representing her county at hockey. Having finished third in the WAAA Indoor Championships in 1964, Lowe went on to win the first of six Midlands titles at either 440 yards/400 metres or 880 yards/800 metres between 1966-71. She won her only WAAA tile in 1969 when she won the 800 metres.

Lowe went to two Olympics, two European Athletics Championships, and three Commonwealth Games. Her best Olympic result was in finishing sixth in the 800 metres in 1968, but at the Europeans she won 4x400 relay gold at Athens in 1969 and 800 silver at Helsinki two years later. Despite gong to the three Commonwealth Games between 1966 and 1974 Lowe won just one medal, an 800 silver, when beaten by inches by Scotland’s Rosemary Stirling.

In 1967 Lowe was in the Great Britain squad that broke both the 3 x 800 metres and 3 x 880 yards relay world records, and in 1969 was in the squad that broke the 4x400 metres world record at the Europeans. The following year, Lowe had a fourth world record to her name when, along with Stirling, Sheila Carey and Lillian Board, she set a new 4x800 record at Edinburgh.

Lowe married the middle-distance runner, and double Olympian, Dave Cropper in 1971. The pair met in the back of an old van in which they were travelling to athletics meeting in the early days of their careers. Lowe won the WAAA’s Athlete of the Year award for 1969, and in 1974 was awarded the MBE for services to athletics.

Personal Best: 800 – 2:01.66 (1971).