Hopkins was born in
Kingston upon Hull but grew up in
Belfast as a child; she had one older sister. At both the
1953 WAAA Championships and
1954 WAAA Championships she was defeated by
Sheila Lerwill in the high jump competition. In the
1954 Commonwealth Games she won a gold medal for Northern Ireland in high jump. Later that year, she got the gold medal in high jump for Great Britain at the
1954 European Athletics Championships. On 5 May 1956, Hopkins set a new world high jump record with a leap of 1.74 metres in
Belfast, erasing the mark of 1.73 metres set by
Aleksandra Chudina of the USSR on 22 May 1954. Her record was broken on 14 July 1956 in Bucharest by
Iolanda Balaș of Romania. Olympic gold medallist
Mary Peters called Hopkins her "inspiration". Coached by
Franz Stampfl, Hopkins completed another double of national championships when winning the 80 metres hurdles and high jump at the
1957 WAAA Championships. As well as athletics she excelled at hockey where she was a regular choice for the
Ireland women's national field hockey team, playing at forward and winning 40 caps. Hopkins moved to Canada, where she died on 10 January 2025, at the age of 88 in Edmonton. Her achievement in breaking the world record is commemorated by a plaque erected by Belfast City Council in 2006 in Cherryvale Playing Fields, South Belfast. == References ==