IUP Athletic Hall of Fame
When Helen Gilbey arrived at IUP in the fall of 1983, she was overweight and 27 years of age. Women’s cross country coach Ed Fry took one look at her and predicted she wouldn’t survive the first week of practice.
Little more than a year later, Gilbey was celebrating her status as an All-American—the first in program history.
The native of England finished fifth at the PSAC meet in 1984, placed sixth in the NCAA Division II Northeast Region race and then finished 18th at the NCAA meet in Clinton, Miss., in a personal-best time of 17 minutes, 30 seconds over the 5,000-meter course. She helped IUP that fall to a second consecutive PSAC title, runner-up honors at regionals and a fifth-place finish at nationals, the second-best in school history.
Gilbey also excelled in track at IUP. She twice qualified for nationals in the 10,000-meter run, finishing 13th at Los Angeles in 1984 and 12th at Cape Girardeau, Mo., a year later.
Gilbey moved to Singapore after leaving IUP and continued to compete at a high level. She was the first female finisher at the Singapore International Triathlon in 1987, 1989 and 1991, and in 1987, also in Singapore, won the inaugural Stamford Westin Hotel Vertical Marathon, in which competitors run up the interior stairwell, 73 floors to the helicopter pad at the top. Gilbey repeated as the winner a year later.
She was the first woman to the finish line in 1991 at the Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon in Malaysia, a grueling 24.5-kilometer race in which runners gain nearly 9,000 feet in elevation to the summit and then make a treacherous descent.
Gilbey took credits from IUP in 1983 and 1984 toward her BS degree from Dartford College in the U.K., then earned a master’s in sports science from IUP in 1985. She received her doctoral degree in orthopedic rehabilitation from the University of Western Australia in 2000.
She retired in 2010 after working as the clinic director at Hollywood Functional Rehabilitation Clinic in Perth.
Gilbey and her husband, Malcolm, reside in Golden Bay, in Western Australia state.
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Personal Reflection
There are only certain people who have the ability to coach women well, and coach Ed Fry was the epitome. He was totally committed to his athletes, never raised his voice in anger, knew the potential of every girl, and we ran our hearts out for him. I could never thank him enough for converting me, as a 27-year-old, overweight teacher from Britain, into IUP’s first cross country All-American in 1984. It took him just one year.
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