Whitbread, Fatima; Blue, Adrianne (1988). Fatima: The Autobiography of Fatima Whitbread. London: Pelham. ISBN 978-0720718560. Margaret and her husband eventually fostered Whitbread, who changed her surname, Vedad, by deed poll. At 14, she finally had a family, which included the Whitbreads’ two young sons. “That was amazing, the best thing that happened, to be a part of a family, which I’d always wanted,” she says. “It wasn’t straightforward, because all families have their problems. Both as mum and daughter and athlete and coach, we worked it out somehow – and we conquered the world.”

In the run-up, when she should have been training hard, she lost “all sense of time. My procrastination was terrible. When I was throwing, it was all over the place – 30 metres, 40 metres, 70 metres.” a b Rajani, Deepika (10 April 2020). "Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul line-up: cast, when it's on BBC One tonight and the route they take". i (newspaper). Archived from the original on 4 April 2022 . Retrieved 4 April 2022. a b c d e "Fatima Whitbread". The Commonwealth Games Federation. Archived from the original on 28 February 2022 . Retrieved 7 May 2022.a b c d e f g h i j "Fatima Whitbread: Honours Summary". World Athletics. Archived from the original on 17 July 2021 . Retrieved 7 May 2022. She is a member of famous with the age 62 years old group. Fatima Whitbread Height, Weight & Measurements Tessa Sanderson". UK Athletics. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020 . Retrieved 13 July 2020. The following month, Whitbread broke the javelin world record with a throw of 77.44m ( 254ft 3⁄ 4in) in the qualifying round of the 1986 European Championships, more than 2 m further than the record set by Petra Felke of East Germany the previous year. She was the first British athlete to set a world record in a throwing event. [21] Felke led for the first three rounds, before Whitbread produced a throw of 72.68m ( 238ft 5 + 1⁄ 4in) in the fourth round, and 73.68m ( 241ft 8 + 3⁄ 4in) in the fifth round to win her first major championship gold. [22] [23] Whitbread later wrote that "All the years of training had finally come to something ... I went on my lap of honour ... Spontaneously, I wiggled my hips in happiness, a victory wiggle." [5] :168 The record was beaten by Felke in July 1987 with a throw of 79.80m ( 261ft 9 + 1⁄ 2in). [24] I am proud to be amongst some of the very best of British women athletes that helped to bring athletics out of amateurism into professionalism and created a platform from which our current day athletes benefit from today.

a b "Cotton and Whitbread voted off Celebrity". Raidió Teilifís Éireann. 3 December 2011. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022 . Retrieved 13 June 2022. Whitbread began training hard. “I started taking more responsibility for myself,” she says. “You have a whole lot of people that help you, but I’ve got to get myself out at 5am, down the gym, three times a day training, seven days a week.” She trained in a wooden shed at the bottom of the garden of a family friend. She smiles when she talks about how different facilities are now: “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I loved every minute of it.” Whitbread with Ferne McCann on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins in 2022. Photograph: Pete Dadds/Channel 4/PAAAA Junior Championships (women)". Athletics Weekly. Archived from the original on 30 October 2018 . Retrieved 12 June 2022. Sport saved her, she says. “It gave me a sense of freedom, forgetting all the problems that were going on in the home and the life we were living. It gave me a sense of achievement, that here was something I was good at. I got validation from my PE teachers and my school friends and started to realise life was a bit more positive. I realised that this could be my way out.” Fatima Whitbread was born on the 3rd day of March 1961 and was christened Fatima Vedad at birth. Her biological mother was of Turkish Cypriot descent while her father was a Greek Cypriot. She was not loved or wanted by her mother and was abandoned till neighbors called in a rescue team. Fatima spent the next four months after her rescue to recuperate from dehydration and malnutrition in the hospital. Fatima lived the next fourteen years of her life in halfway homes and welfare centers.