Kirsty Wade
Inducted 2008
Track
Regarded as Wales' finest female middle-distance runner. Won ten consecutive Welsh 800m titles and competed at two Olympic Games. The second-fastest Briton of all time at 800m (1:57.42), 1,000m, and the mile.
Biography
Kirsty Wade (nee McDermott) was born in Girvan, Scotland, and raised in Mid-Wales, becoming Wales’ most celebrated female middle-distance runner. She won ten consecutive Welsh senior 800m titles between 1979 and 1988.
Her personal best of 1:57.42 for 800m remains the second-fastest by a British woman of all time, and she also holds second-best British marks at 1,000m (2:33.70) and the mile (4:19.41). She competed at the Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992 Olympics, set 12 Welsh records across four distances, and was named BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year in 1986.
Wade was a three-time Commonwealth Games medallist and trained under several coaches including Harry Wilson.