Doreen M. DREDGE

Encouraged by her father, Doreen Dredge took up track and field athletics at a young age and, as a student at Kelvington High School, was noticed for her prowess in the high jump by Joe Griffiths, the trainer of Canadian 1928 Olympic high jump champion Ethel Catherwood and the coach of Canada’s 1936 and 1948 Olympic track teams. He quickly helped her break the junior world record, which she followed up by tying the senior Canadian record in an Olympic qualifying event. She won her country’s trials for the 1948 Summer Games, aged only 17, and was selected to represent her nation in the high jump in London. There, she missed the podium by 0.03 meters, coming in joint-fourth with Jamaica’s Vinton Beckett at a height of 1.58. She continued to compete in the high jump during her final year of high school, but quit upon graduating and entering a teacher’s college. She taught for several years before marrying Bernard Wolff and moving to a farm in rural Saskatchewan. She was inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.

Personal Best: HJ – 1.60 (1948).