Ethel (Catherwood) Mitchell

Athlete (1986)

Track and Field

Ethel Mitchell was born Ethel Catherwood in Hannah, North Dakota on April 18, 1908. Her parents had homesteaded near Scott, Saskatchewan in 1906. They journeyed from Hannah to Scott a few times before finally settling permanently in Scott in May 1910. As a student at Champagne School in Scott, Ethel won her first high jump competition leaping three feet, 10 inches in a meet at Wilkie.

When the Catherwood family moved to Saskatoon in 1925, Ethel participated in baseball, basketball and track and field. With Joe Griffiths as her coach, Ethel set her sights on competing at the 1928 Olympics. After setting a world record in the high jump in Regina, she went to the Amsterdam Olympics and won the gold medal with a leap of five feet two and 9/16th inches. While Saskatoon referred to her as the Saskatoon Lily, Ethel was named the prettiest athlete (beauty prize) of the 1928 Games by a New York correspondent.

She was named to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in 1966.

** Deceased