Elizabeth Anne E. FERRIS

Although Liz Ferris was born in Somerset, she was brought up largely in Soho, where her father was a milkman, and she attended Francis Holland School in Marylebone. She joined the Mermaids Swimming Club before she was 10 and won her first of five national titles in 1957, when she was 16-years-old. Ferris won her first international fame at the 1958 British Empire Games, where she won a bronze in springboard. The high point of her career came at the 1960 Olympics, where she won a surprising bronze medal. At the 1961 Universiade Ferris won both springboard and platform golds and at the 1962 Commonwealth Games, won silver in springboard. She also competed at the 1958 European Championships, finishing sixth in springboard.

Ferris retired from sports after the 1962 season and concentrated on her studies at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, graduating as a doctor in 1965. After graduation Ferris worked at the Middlesex and Cheltenham Hospitals and as an acupuncturist. Ferris participated in the inaugural Women in Sport Conference organized by the IOC in 1976 and subsequently became a member of the IOC’s Women and Sport Commission, set up in 1995. Known as a campaigner for the rights and equality of women in sport, Ferris was notably involved in the controversy of gender eligibility, and was awarded the Olympic Order in Bronze in 1980. Ferris was also a founder and vice-president of the World Olympians Association (WOA) and the British Olympians Club.