Sharron Davies
Olympic Silver, Commonwealth Gold swimmer
Sharron Davies learned to swim at the age of six and set a record by swimming for the British national team at just eleven.
She was selected to represent Great Britain at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal; although she was not in the medals, it did make her a household name.
She won two bronze medals in the 1977 European Championships and the next year, still just fifteen, she won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in the 200 and 400-metre individual medleys. She also picked up a further silver and bronze medal. In 1980 she took the silver medal in the 400m individual medley behind East German Petra Schneider, who later admitted that the victory was drug enhanced. She picked up two more medals at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. When she retired from swimming in 1994 she had been a British champion on twenty occasions and had broken two hundred British swimming records and 5 World Masters records.
In 1993 Davies was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) "for services to swimming". She continues to appear regularly as one of the BBC's main swimming commentators.
Davies was a joint host presenter along with Jim Rosenthal on TV Channel Five's celebrity sports competition Superstars.
She provided commentary for the BBC at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was a presenter at the London Olympics Handover Party in the Mall.
