| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationality | British | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1933-04-29)29 April 1933 Knowle, England | |||||||||||||||||
| Died | 29 March 2016(2016-03-29) (aged 82) | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Equestrian | |||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Diana Mason,OBE[1][2] (29 April 1933 – 29 March 2016) was a Britishequestrian.[3] She was part of the Great Britain team that won gold in the team event at theEuropean Eventing Championships in 1954 and 1955.[4] She also competed at the1976 Summer Olympics and the1988 Summer Olympics.[5]
Mason was born inKnowle, in the West Midlands in 1933.[3] She started to ride horses from a young age and got her first horse when she was seventeen years old.[3] In 1954, Mason became the first woman to be selected for the Britishthree day eventing team.[3] In the same year, she won gold at theEuropean Eventing Championships.[6]
Mason competed at two Olympic Games.[4] At the1976 Summer Olympics inMontreal, she competed in theindividual andteam dressage events, finishing in 25th and 8th places respectively.[7][8] Twelve years later, at the1988 Summer Olympics inSeoul, she competed in the same two events, finishing in 37th place in theindividual event,[9] and 10th in theteam event.[10] Mason was also a reserve for the1984 Summer Olympics inLos Angeles.[3]
She retired from competing in 1991.[3] From 1975 to 1992, Mason was the chair of the British Horse Society Dressage Group,[4] and she was the team manager for Great Britain at the1996 Summer Paralympics inAtlanta.[4] Mason continued to judge events until 2013.[3]
In January 2008, Mason was named anOBE for services to equestrian sport in theNew Year Honours.[11] She died in March 2016, at the age of 82.[12]
