The distinguished French woman Micheline Ostermeyer, who died on October 17th aged 78, performed the remarkable feat of combining a world-class athletics career with that of a successful concert pianist. Between 1945 and 1948, she won the top piano prize at the National Conservatoire in Paris, embarked on an exhausting series of concert tours, and - almost as an afterthought - won two gold medals and a bronze at the London Olympic Games in 1948.
She was born in Berck-sur-Mer, on the Channel coast, to a music-loving mother who insisted on her learning the piano from the age of four, and a father who was passionate about physical exercise. She was still young when the family moved to Tunis, and, though she returned to Paris when she was 13 to take her place at the conservatoire, the outbreak of the second World War forced her back to North Africa.
There, she divided her time between Radio Tunis, where, by the age of 18, she was performing a weekly half-hour piano recital, and the Oriental Tunis Sports Club, where she played basketball for relaxation, and, fast developing the strength and skills of an all-round athlete, became the mainstay of the track and field team.
By 1945, she was French shot-putt champion, and 12 months later - the same year that she completed her interrupted piano training at the conservatoire and began a professional concert career - she won a silver medal at the European Athletics Championships in Oslo.
As the 1948 Olympic Games approached, she also honed her high-jumping technique and, in a moment of inspiration, realised that her tall, powerful frame - she stood 5ft 11in in height and weighed 11st 6lb - and the leg-speed that had made her into a more than competent sprinter might be ideal for throwing the discus. She practised the new discipline for barely two months, but, with the dedication and concentration she brought to her daily five hours at the piano, she improved enough to take third place in the French trials, and was selected for all three events for the London Games.
During that week at Wembley, all other individual successes were overshadowed by the four gold medals won by the Dutch phenomenon Fanny Blankers-Koen, but Micheline Ostermeyer's achievement was scarcely less dramatic. On the first day, she amazed herself as much as the spectators by advancing from third to first with her final throw to win the discus; by midweek, she had stamped her authority on her specialist event, the shot putt, to take the title by a decisive two feet, and on the final afternoon of athletics, she played her part in an enthralling high-jump final, equalling her own French record to take the bronze medal behind the American Alice Coachman and Britain's Dorothy Tyler.
France greeted her triumph with characteristic fervour, but her amateur athletics career gradually gave way to that of the professional pianist.
The marriage of the two was not always easy, and the Parisian musical establishment was initially less than enthusiastic about accepting a muscular young idol who was splashed all over the sports pages. However, her response was as effective as it was courageous; she undertook a concert in which, on a single evening, she played three major piano works one after another - Brahms's D minor concerto, Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations and Liszt's concerto in E flat. It was as much a test of strength and stamina as it was an artistic exercise, but it was a roaring success and her reputation was assured.
Micheline Ostermeyer's athletics career ended in the early 1950s. She had held French titles in six different disciplines, including the multi-event pentathlon, which would have been another natural for her had it been included in the Olympic programme in those days. But the arrival of Soviet athletes in the field events arena had pushed her down the rankings, and back problems hastened her decision.
The piano took over, and, for the next 15 years, she toured Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, as well as undertaking engagements the length and breadth of France, until family commitments, and the early death of her husband, persuaded her to take a permanent teaching post, a job she held until the early 1980s.
She emerged from retirement in the 1990s to make a series of appearances in France and Switzerland - some solo recitals, a few orchestral and chamber concerts, and a notable series of two-piano programmes with Franτois-RenΘ Duchable.
By the end of the decade, she was alternating these performances with the endless round of dinners and receptions to honour France's great sporting names of the 20th century.
Micheline Ostermeyer: born 1922; died, October 2001