The New Brighton Museum has a rich history spanning for more than 100 years. Peggy Butterfield writes about the historical display at the heritage museum.
Chamberlain was a bronze medal winner in the women’s 800m in a time of 2min 02.8sec, and she finished third to the winner, Great Britain’s Anne Parker.
To this day she remains only one of two New Zealand female track medallists; the other is Lorraine Moller who ran third in the 1992 Barcelona Games marathon.
Only three other female athletes have won Olympic medals in the field events - Yvette Williams (long jump), Dame Valerie Adams (shot put) and Eliza McCartney (pole vault).
Chamberlain is now 85-years-old and still lives in Pine Ave, South New Brighton.
Chamberlain is a regular attendee at our Golden Oldie Movie Club on Monday afternoons at 1pm.
Chamberlain was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.
In the Tokyo afternoons, Chamberlain would complete her track workouts with the Lydiard squad, including the late Sir Peter Snell, who went on to win double gold on the track in the National Stadium.
It was Snell who looked at Chamberlain’s training shoes and was shocked to see the backs cut out of them and well past their best.
Chamberlain suffered from chronic bursitis in both ankles throughout her career and had altered her training shoes to relieve pressure on the bursae.
Snell took Chamberlain to the shoemakers who were outfitting him and they immediately threw her old shoes in the bin.
Today Chamberlain still takes a daily walk along New Brighton beach.
- The Tokyo Olympics run from July 23 to August 8.
-Peggy Butterfield is a volunteer at New Brighton Museum.
