The British broadcaster Helen Rollason, who died from cancer on August 9th, aged 43, was the first woman presenter of BBC television's flagship sports programme Grandstand. She once said that she had no idea about television image, but that she was passionate about sport - from netball to ice hockey, cricket to athletics.
Born in London, she was brought up by adoptive parents in Northamptonshire and Bath, and educated at Chelsea College of Physical Education and Dalhousie University, in Canada. Her enthusiasm for sport was evident early on; as a child, she was desperate to run faster, jump higher and kick more goals than her older brother, David.
Her broadcasting career began when she joined Essex Radio in 1980. She quickly became deputy sports editor, and discovered the difficulties and tensions of moving into a male, sporting world. In 1984, she joined Cheerleader Productions as a producer-director, making sports programmes for Channel 4, and worked on the US Masters and US Open, the Davis Cup final in Sweden in 1984 and the 1985 Super Bowl.
But it was not long before she returned to reporting, this time with ITV, where her coverage included the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. Athletics was her first sporting passion, and Lillian Board, the British Olympic 400 metres silver medallist, who died of cancer at the age of 22, was among her heroines.
Helen Rollason joined BBC Sport in 1990 to present Sport On Friday. Her other notable credits at the time included presenting Wimbledon and the Winter Olympics. Her coverage of disability sports - including the World Disabled Championships of 1990, the Blind Golfers' Championship in 1991, the Paralympics of 1992 and 1996, and the Special Olympics in 1993 and 1997 won awards, and she was later to say that the courage of disabled athletes had helped her to combat her own illness.
Two months ago, she joined the team presenting the Six O' Clock News, for which she fronted a weekly sports news bulletin.
Her cancer - initially of the colon, and later of the liver and lungs - was diagnosed in August 1997, yet she maintained a considerable workload throughout her illness. Even after 50 sessions of chemotherapy, she had not missed a single day at work. She treated her condition with remarkable tenacity, gaining considerable admiration from colleagues and friends.
Not only did she refuse to make a fuss over her illness, which she had been told was terminal more than a year ago, but she joked at one point that she'd had so much chemotherapy she thought she must glow: "I reckon I must affect every piece of electrical equipment I go past." In 1998, she cooperated with a BBC documentary, Hope For Helen, which followed her and her daughter, Nikki, through a cycle of her cancer treatment.
Helen Rollason last appeared on BBC Television on June 18th, and one of her last public appearances was to collect an MBE at Buckingham Palace. She supported cancer charities and launched a fund-raising drive to finance a new wing for a hospital near her home in Shenfield, Essex. She also supported charities helping disabled athletes.
Divorced seven years ago from her husband John, a PE teacher, she spent as much time as possible with her daughter.
One of the most touching moments of her career came during the BBC Sports Review Of The Year programme in December 1998, when her colleagues paid her a special tribute, which produced the longest and most spontaneous applause of the evening. "It must have been awful for people at home. How boring!" she said later: "I was embarrassed and thought I was going to cry, but I was touched that my colleagues did that."
Helen Rollason: born 1956; died August, 1999