William Raymond Tancred (born 6 August 1942) is a leading sports administrator, academic and former international athlete. He competed at the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics in the discus and won a bronze and silver medals in successive Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974. He was the British National discus champion on nine occasions [16] and held the British record for 25 years his personal best being 64.94m in 1974. He also competed in the shot put and remains one of the top ten British shot putters. Athleticsweekly.com has ranked Tancred as the greatest British discus thrower of all-time by virtue of his long reign as British record-holder and profusion of AAA titles. Bill Tancred was also the first UK athlete to break the 200 ft./61m. discus barrier in 1972 which was also a UK All-Comers record for the event (61.94m) [4]. Even today he could claim to being the best all round thrower ever in British Athletics.[15].
Early life
Bill Tancred was born in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan, and grew up in Felixstowe. He was one of a number of siblings, one of his younger brothers being the athlete and strongman Pete Tancred. As a school boy, the javelin was his main event but he developed elbow trouble and was forced to abandon this event. His father, Adrian, believed that this was not a barrier to athletics in another discipline and Bill took up the discus in which his father coached him. After the family moved to Ipswich from Felixstowe he would find roads with adjoining fields to throw into and would often lose the discus in the long grass. In addition, chalk was used to draw a discus and shot circle on the road. His father would get him to read books on the subject as well, to hone the technique, a discipline not used widely in the 1950s. Bill's father would also improvise with equipment if none were available. He joined Ipswich Harriers and trained at the Ipswich Town training ground. This gave him opportunities for competition within the county and also in the Eastern Counties framework.
Sport
Having represented his county, he competed in the Eastern Counties and rose quickly to domestic prominence. His first international vest for Great Britain was in 1964 against the Benelux Countries in Ghent. Although proud of his British and European and Commonwealth achievements, Tancred has made it clear that the pinnacle of being an athlete is to compete at the Olympic games, and in interviews recalls getting a letter signed by the Duke of Edinburgh, telling him that he had been selected to represent Great Britain in the 1968 Olympics. He took his father, mother, friends and siblings for a meal to celebrate. As a young athlete, he recalls being awestruck at the Olympics. He saw Bob Beamon set the long jump record, recalled talking to athletes about a new high jump method called the Fosbury flop, witnessed the Black power salute of the American sprinters and found himself competing against his idol, Al Oerter, already the three time Olympic discus champion who won his fourth gold medal in Mexico, which he reportedly said was one for each of his daughters. Of his own performance, Tancred has said that he felt he ought to have thrown better but a combination of over training and lack of experience in such a big arena as the Olympics were his downfall. The discipline of waiting long periods between throws was something he had not appreciated and found hard to reconcile to a more explosive approach that he employed.
One of the nineteen occasions that he broke the British record was at the AAA Championships in Crystal Palace 1972 where he received a windproof jacket as a prize for winning the event with the sponsors name on it (Nationwide Building Society). [5]. However, he was not permitted to wear the windproof jacket at AAA events due to the strict rules around sponsorship!