WHEN Australian high jumper Nicola McDermott earned silver at the Olympics this year it was the first time Australia had won a medal in high jump since 1964.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And the winner of that 1964 medal was Michele Mason-Brown who also claimed second place, also in Olympics held in Tokyo - the first ever Olympic Games to be held in Asia.
Mason-Brown said she only took up athletics in 1956 because her father was worried about her having so many sick days off school.
"I started when I was in high school," she said.
"I was a sickly child and my father thought athletics might help my bronchitis and asthma. So he took me along to the athletics club in the January and by November I was in the Melbourne Olympics.
"But I was never a dedicated athlete and I wouldn't have put in all the hours they do now."
At the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, the 17-year-old was also completing her high school leaving certificate.
She came sixth in that event, her first major competition but certainly not her last.
Mason-Brown went on to win a raft of medals at Olympic and Commonwealth Games but said she could not attribute her success to hard training.
"I trained two hours a week at most," she said.
"I was such an amateur at the Melbourne games, I wasn't even a state champion.
"I was a naive little schoolgirl who hadn't jumped more than half a dozen times in interclub competition.
"I had been told to keep my eye on my marker, which tells you where to start, but I left the field and when I came back my marker was gone. They said other countries would grab the first opportunity to remove your marker. I was sabotaged but you learn from that."
By the time Mason-Brown got to Tokyo she was able to jump 1.88 metres at training, using what many termed an inefficient technique.
"I used the scissor jump when everyone else was using what they called the western roll," she said.
"I remember one commentator announcing 'the Australian competitor is using the outmoded scissor jump and she will be greatly disadvantaged by this'. I didn't care, I was comfortable with it and I felt springy."
Mason-Brown met the love of her life at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games.
"He offered to carry my bags to the women's quarters and I said I'm sorry but I don't even know you' and that's when he told me his name was Bob Brown," she said.
"He was the Queensland champion hammer thrower. The day after we met he told me he was going to marry me."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Mason-Brown did marry her hammer thrower and moved from Sydney to live at Marburg, where the couple raised a family of four children.
"We were married for more than 50 years until he passed away in 2007," she said.
The 82-year-old now lives alone on the family property and said she had all her high jump medals somewhere around the house.
"They had this big thing in Brisbane a while back where all the Olympians got badges," she said.
"We were told that men should bow and women curtsy when meeting the Governor General When it was my turn I put my hand out and shook his hand. I curtsy for no one."
"The others who came behind me did the same thing."
Mason-Brown said Olympic and Commonwealth Games were much different today than how they were in her day.
"We were all amateurs and we had such a good time," she said.
"There were no team sports, it was just individual against individual. It has completely changed now."
Mason-Brown was inducted into the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame in 2011.
