Beverley Shingles, the first New Zealand woman to win national athletic titles in three distance running disciplines, was the latest inductee into the Wanganui Sports Hall of Fame last night.
She won the inaugural NZ women's marathon title in 1980 (Christchurch) after earlier winning the national 1500m track championship in 1971 (Hamilton) and the national cross-country title in 1972 (Dunedin).
Shingles was one of the top distance runners in the country for two decades, 1962-1982, representing New Zealand in track, cross-country and marathon.
She was a member of the New Zealand team that was second in the 1971 world cross-country championships in Spain and in the championship-winning teams at the Belgium and London international races as well as the 1982 London Marathon.
In 1971, Shingles won the 1500m and was runner-up in the 800m for New Zealand at the RH North Trans-Tasman track meeting in Sydney.
As a 39-year-old mother of two, she beat a high class field of more than 50 runners to win the 1979 20th Century Fox International Women's Marathon in Los Angeles, run over the same course used at the 1932 Olympic Games.
She came second in an international 10,000m road race a few days later in Santa Monica.
In her first marathon in 1976, Shingles smashed the national women's record by 30m 47s in winning the Rotorua race, which she also won again three years later. Success followed in international marathons in Christchurch, Hamilton and Taumarunui. Her finishing time in 1976, which was the seventh fastest ever recorded in the world, would have won the Boston marathon, which was raced a week earlier.
In international marathons, she was runner-up in the 1976 Avon Australian race, 11th in Atlanta in 1978, second again in Sydney in 1981, fourth in Tokyo and then ninth in a field of 680 in Ottawa.
Shingles won a world cross-country trial at Trentham in 1971, the 1500m at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games trials in Auckland, was second over 800m and 1500m at the 1969 Commonwealth Games trials and raced in the track 3000m at the 1975 NZ Games in Christchurch. She would win three titles - 5000m and 10,000m track and the 10km road race - during the 1981 world masters games in Christchurch and Palmerston North.
Shingles was the first female winner of the Wanganui Sportsperson of the Year in 1971 and won the honour again in 1980.
She was awarded an Athletics New Zealand long service medal in 1992 and is a life member of the Wanganui Harrier Club.
Now she follows in the footsteps of former world rowing champion Philippa Baker-Hogan and ex-NZ hockey captain Patricia Barwick as the third woman to be inducted as individual members of the Wanganui Hall of Fame.
Mary Laugesen (golf and softball), her sister Joan McIntyre (softball) and their late mother Annie (golf) are also in the Hall of Fame as members of the McIntyre Family.
Wanganui Sports Hall of Fame now comprises 20 individuals and two family groups.
The 74-year-old Shingles, who won numerous races for the Wanganui Athletic and Cycling club, the Wanganui Harrier Club and for West Coast (North Island) centre teams, was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Ray White Wanganui Sports Awards function.