Early career Whitbread won the
English Schools' Athletics Championships intermediate title in 1977, She placed sixth in the
javelin throw at the
1978 Commonwealth Games, throwing . Having finished behind fellow British competitor
Tessa Sanderson in a run of 18 competitions, Whitbread finally defeated her rival with a throw of to win the
UK Athletics Championship in 1983, Whitbread won the silver medal at the inaugural
World Championships in 1983, having narrowly qualified for the final. She finished in the bronze medal position, with , and Sanderson () won gold. Lillak, who had a stress fracture in her right foot, won the silver medal. After the result, Whitbread commented that "I am so disappointed... I was not right on the night." Whitbread sat down crying on the field after the result for around 30 minutes. After the medal ceremony, she commented, while still visibly upset: "12 years of hard work. Still no [gold] medal... I've waited two long years since [the 1984 Summer Olympics]. And now I'm humiliated." Sanderson, who had placed behind Whitbread in all of their seven post-1984 Olympics meetings before the Games, said "I don't mind losing to Fatima in the smaller competitions, but not in the big ones."
World record, and European and World championship wins The following month, Whitbread broke the
javelin world record with a throw of 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. Felke led for the first three rounds, before Whitbread produced a throw of in the fourth round, and in the fifth round to win her first major championship gold. 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." Whitbread qualified for the final of the
1987 World Championships in second place behind Felke. Her throw of was, at the time, the third-longest ever, and won her the title ahead of Felke. Sanderson was fourth. Her celebratory wiggles after defeating Felke in the World and European event became well known in the UK. She was voted winner of the
BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 1987. David Powell wrote in
The Times, that "To that practiced smile, she has added the 'Whitbread wiggle'. She is succeeding in bringing personality to her event in the same way that
Willie Banks did to the triple jump."
Later career In the months leading up to the
1988 Summer Olympics in
Seoul, Whitbread suffered from several ailments: a shoulder injury,
boils,
glandular fever and problems with her
gums. Whitbread won the silver medal behind Felke, Whitbread's later career was affected by a long-term shoulder injury, which she believed dated back to her world record throw in 1986. The
1990 UK Athletics Championships was the last event that she participated in, and she sustained a further shoulder injury there. In 1992 she formally retired from competition.
Rivalry with Tessa Sanderson Alan Hubbard wrote in a 1990 article in
The Observer about Whitbread and Sanderson that "their hate-hate relationship has been one of the most enduring in British sport," lasting almost a decade. Hubbard cited Sanderson's perception that Whitbread received preferential treatment from the British Amateur Athletic Board. The Board's promotions officer, Andy Norman, who had a role in setting British athletes' fees, was a family friend of Whitbread and her mother. In 1985, Whitbread often participated in international events but Sanderson took part in only one in the season ending in June 1985. Sanderson claimed that this was because she lacked supporters in the meetings where representatives were determined; she said that "Fatima has Andy Norman looking after her in meetings ... and, of course, her mother, Margaret, is the national event coach". In 1987, Sanderson threatened to boycott six official athletics events, for which she was to be paid £1,000 each by British Athletics compared to Whitbread's £10,000. Sanderson also objected to the Whitbreads' endorsement of Howland, who competed at the 1990 Commonwealth Games after a two-year doping suspension, since Howland was Australian, and Sanderson felt they should have supported British athletes instead. During their respective careers, Whitbread gained one world and one European title; Sanderson won an Olympic and three Commonwealth golds. In all, Sanderson placed higher in 27 of the 45 times that they faced each other in competition, although Whitbread had the better results of the pair from 1984 to 1987. In 1993, coach Peter Lawler favourably compared Whitbread's technique to Sanderson's, writing in
IAAF New Studies in Athletics that "the alignments of Whitbread and [Mick] Hill are as straight as a cricket text book's bat. Whitbread perfected the turning on to the shaft while Sanderson often sagged through the delivery." ==Personal life==