Sharron Davies

Davies was born in Plymouth, Devon, and grew up in Plymouth and Plymstock. She has twin brothers. She attended Plymstock Comprehensive School and the private school Kelly College, which is now known as Mount Kelly, in Tavistock.[3]

She originally learnt to swim with Devonport Royal Swimming Association. She moved to Port of Plymouth Swimming Association when she was eight and was coached for the first year first by Ray Bickley then by her father Terry Davies who became a coach.[4][5] Her father was never selected as an international coach because he spoke out about East German cheating. He was added in 2021 to the Coaches Association Hall of Fame.[5]

She learned to swim at the age of six and was training seriously two years later.

She set a record by swimming for the British national team at the age of 11. In 1976, at age 13, Davies was selected to represent Great Britain at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. The next year she won two bronze medals in the 1977 European Championships. The following year, at age 15, she won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in the 200 and 400-metre individual medleys and also a silver and a bronze medal.

In the 1980 Olympics, Davies took the silver medal in the 400 m individual medley behind East German Petra Schneider, who later admitted that the victory was drug enhanced.[6]

At 18, Davies called time on the first stage of her swimming career to build her television profile and a career in modelling. In 1989, and training at Bracknell & Wokingham Swimming Club, she returned to the pool, where she picked up two more medals at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. By the time she finally retired for good in 1994, she had been a British champion on 22 occasions and had broken two hundred British swimming records and 5 World Masters records (eligible to those over 30).

Davies has broken or re broken many British records whilst competing and winning[7][8] For medals table see right.

• silver medal in the 400-metre individual medley at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow[2]
• two gold, two silver and two bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games in 1978[9] and 1990.[10]
• two bronze medals at European Championships[11]

Davies held the Commonwealth Record for 400-metre individual medley for 18 years. She has also been a World Masters Record Holder.[8]

In the latest development in the long story of the East German state-run doping programme, The Times broke the news in 2021 that there is a possibility that the bronze and silver medals won may be upgraded to Gold.[12]

At the ASA National British Championships she won 22 titles - the 100 metres freestyle title in 1978, 200 metres freestyle title in 1977 and 1978, 400 metres freestyle title in 1977, 1978 and 1979, 800 metres freestyle title in 1978, 200 metres backstroke title in 1976, 1977 and 1978, 200 metres medley title in 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1989 and 1992, 400 metres medley title in 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980 and the 50 metres butterfly title in 1992.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19]

In the 1993 New Year Honours, Davies was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire "for services to swimming".[20]

Bronze statue of a mermaid, modelled by Davies, on the sea wall of the Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes, Isle of Wight.

• In January 2022, she launched an online fitness site, Sharron Davies Training.[21]
• Swimming biography Against the Tide published in 1984[22]
• Dorling & Kindersley's popular learn to swim in a weekend (which has been translated into multiple languages)
• Channel 4 television comedy series The Optimist, in an episode that was filmed entirely on location on Mexico
• This Morning - presenting a mums and babies learning to swim series on ITV
• BBC Question time – discussing the Winning Olympic Bid for London 2012 which Davies was part of.
• 1996 Presented Channel 4's Big Breakfast
• 1995 she joined ITV's Gladiators being given the nickname Amazon
• Presenter of Ace Reports, ITV's version of Blue Peter.
• Survived on Bear Gryll's The Island.
• Competed on ITV's Dancing on Ice
• 1981 BBC series Sporting Superstars
• Guest dart player, throwing for charity, on British game show Bullseye.
• Presenting and commentating on swimming coverage for the BBC (extended to other sports for the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics.)
• 2008 with Jim Rosenthal on Five's latest revival of the long running celebrity sports competition Superstars.[23]
• 2010 - ITV series Dancing on Ice, partnered by regular participant Pavel Albrecht. She was eliminated on 21 February 2010 (Week 7 of the series).
• Ski tuition video with world champion Franz Klammer, alongside fellow swimmer Duncan Goodhew.
• 1994 – a "British Girls of Sport" calendar (wearing sexy outfits to raise money for the Sports Aid Foundation).
• She was also a presenter at London's Olympics Handover Party in the Mall.

In the 1980s, Davies lived with and was engaged to Neil Adams[24] an Olympic and World Championship medallist in judo.

Davies then married gym manager John Crisp in West Sussex in 1987. They were divorced in 1991.[25]

In 1992, she met athlete Derek Redmond at the Barcelona Olympics. In 1994 they were married in Northampton, and had two children. They divorced in 2000.[26]

Davies's third marriage was to British Airways pilot Tony Kingston.[27] They were married in 2002 in Gloucestershire.[28] In autumn 2006, she announced that she was three months pregnant after 8 rounds of IVF treatment, having been trying for a baby for four years and suffering two miscarriages. During a Sport Relief event in Devon, she said: "We're very optimistic and happy but we're cautious, too, because of what we have been through. Giving birth at 44 doesn't worry me. So many women go through this as they leave it later to have babies." Davies gave birth to her third child on 30 January 2007. She split up with Kingston after seven years of marriage in 2009.[29]

Davies is a supporter of the Conservative Party and endorsed Kemi Badenoch in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.[30]

In 2019, Davies entered the debate about the participation by trans women in female sporting competitions, opposing such participation, saying that trans women hold a biological advantage in sports.[31] Olympic medal-winning sports people in support of this position include: Sally Gunnell and Nicola Adams.[31] Other Olympic medal-winning sports people have spoken in opposition, including Madeline Groves.[32]

She became involved in the question of trans women in sport, not because of trans women themselves but rather because at the 1980 Olympics she lost out on gold to Schneider who, along with other East German athletes, had been put on testosterone to enhance their performances through doping.[33]

In 2022, Davies alleged that trans women hold a potential biological male performance advantage at the elite level of 10–20% over cisgender females and called for women's sport to exclude XY chromosome athletes.[34] In March, she wrote a column for The Times arguing that "trans women's" advantage is the result of going through male puberty, resulting in narrower angle between the hips and knees which testosterone reduction does not eliminate, and called for trans women to compete in an open category rather than being excluded from competition entirely.[35] In the same article, she stated: "This month we saw an athlete, Lia Thomas, who was an average club swimmer as a man claim an NCAA title as the US No 1 woman with 20 years of male development in the tank."[35]

In 2023, Davies criticised sportswear brand Nike for using Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman, to model their products in an advertisement and called for a boycott.[36]

• List of Olympic medalists in swimming (women)
• List of Commonwealth Games medallists in swimming (women)

• Sharron Davies's official homepage
• Sharron Davies at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• On Davies's 1998 appeal to the IOC
• Sharron Davies at IMDb