{"id":1040007335,"date":"2025-09-05T09:46:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T08:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/?p=1040007335"},"modified":"2025-09-05T09:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T08:54:10","slug":"john-sherwood-olympic-400m-hurdles-bronze-medallist-dies-aged-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/news\/john-sherwood-olympic-400m-hurdles-bronze-medallist-dies-aged-80-1040007335\/","title":{"rendered":"John Sherwood, Olympic 400m hurdles bronze medallist, dies aged 80"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yorkshireman who inspired Seb Coe to take up athletics won medal behind David Hemery in Mexico 1968, Commonwealth gold in 1970 and excelled in Superstars<\/p>\n

When David Hemery set a world record in the 400m hurdles at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, commentator David Coleman famously said: \u201cIn second place is Hennige and who cares who\u2019s third? It doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s a new world record!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an early example of one of the verbal gaffes which were later affectionately dubbed \u201cColemanballs\u201d. The bronze medallist that day was actually Hemery\u2019s GB team-mate John Sherwood and the Sheffield athlete, who died last month aged 80, helped inspire Seb Coe to take up athletics.<\/p>\n

Such was his impact, Coe mentioned Sherwood \u2013 and his wife and fellow athlete Sheila \u2013 in his speech in Singapore in July 2005 when London beat Paris in a bidding battle for the right to stage the 2012 Olympics.<\/p>

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1968 Olympic 400m hurdles final (Mark Shearman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Coe told the IOC delegates: \"When I was 12 I was marched into a large school hall with my classmates. We sat in front of an ancient, black and white TV and watched grainy pictures from the Mexico Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

\"Two athletes from our home town were competing. John Sherwood won a bronze medal in the 400m hurdles. His wife Sheila narrowly missed gold in the long jump.<\/p>\n

\"That day a window to a new world opened for me. By the time I was back in my classroom, I knew what I wanted to do - and what I wanted to be.<\/p>\n

\"I stood for hours at my local track just to catch a glimpse of the medals the Sherwoods brought home. It didn't stop there. Two days later I joined their club.<\/p>

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\"Two years later Sheila gave me my first pair of spikes. Thirty-five years on, I stand before you with those memories still fresh, still inspired by this great Movement. My journey here to Singapore started in that school hall and continues today \u2013 in wonder and in gratitude.\"<\/p>\n

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John Sherwood (Mark Shearman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

John said at the time: \"We feel so proud Seb mentioned us. We had no idea we were going to be part of his speech. It was a complete shock but we both feel very honoured.\u201d<\/p>\n

His Olympic medal aside, Sherwood won four AAA titles \u2013 two in the 440 yards hurdles and two in the 400m hurdles \u2013 plus a silver medal behind Vyacheslav Skomorokhov of the Soviet Union at the 1969 European Championships in Athens and gold in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

His best time of 49.03, set in Mexico in 1968, still ranks him No.20 on the UK all-time rankings. He also anchored the British 4x400m team to fifth place in 1968 and competed in the 1972 Olympics but did not make the final.<\/p>

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General sports fans, however, might remember Sherwood the best for his exploits in Superstars.<\/p>\n

The 1980 World Superstars event in the Bahamas was billed as a showdown between British judo player Brian Jacks and American soccer star Brian Budd, but it was Sherwood who finished runner-up to Budd as Jacks finished fourth.<\/p>\n

Earlier that year Sherwood finished runner-up to Jacks in the UK Superstars final in Cwmbran, beating Daley Thompson into third. Sherwood also won a Superstars Past Masters competition in Bebbington, beating England\u2019s 1966 World Cup hero Geoff Hurst into second place.<\/p>\n

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Sheila Sherwood (Mark Shearman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Sherwood family was full of sporting talent generally. John\u2019s brother, Steve, played as a goalkeeper for Chelsea and Watford, while John and Sheila\u2019s son, David, played tennis in the British Davis Cup team.<\/p>\n

The Yorkshireman achieved all of these achievements while holding down a busy teaching job in Sheffield, too, including 37 years at Firth Park School.<\/span><\/p>\n

But he died after a long illness on August 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were never any half measures,\u201d said Sheila. \u201cHe would do things properly and that was why he had such a great sporting career and was such a good teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yorkshireman who inspired Seb Coe to take up athletics won medal behind David Hemery in Mexico 1968, Commonwealth gold in 1970 and excelled in Superstars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":1040007337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","inline_featured_image":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_championship":0,"wds_primary_country":0,"wds_primary_sports":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,35971],"tags":[],"championship":[],"country":[],"sports":[35998],"class_list":["post-1040007335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-obituaries","sports-400m-hurdles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040007335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040007335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040007335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1040007337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040007335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040007335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040007335"},{"taxonomy":"championship","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/championship?post=1040007335"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=1040007335"},{"taxonomy":"sports","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sports?post=1040007335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}