Category: Athlete
Degree: B.Ed.
Diane Jones Konihowski, a graduate of Aden Bowman Collegiate in Saskatoon, enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan (B. Ed., 1977) in 1969.
In five years with the track & field team, she led the Huskiettes to three conference team titles and won 12 individual events. She set conference records in four events.
While a student at teh University of Saskatchewan, Diane represented Canada at the Pacific Conference Games, two World University Games, Munich Olympic Games, where she finished 10th in the pentathlon.
In both 1974 and 1975, she won the Mary Ethel Cartwright Trophy as female athlete of the year at the U of S.
After graduation, Diane went on to win gold medals in pentathlon at the 1975 Pan-Am Games in Mexico City, the 1979 Pan-Am Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico and the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton.
At her peak, she was ranked No. 1 in the world in the pentathlon.
She was named to two more Olympic teams. She was sixth in the pentathlon and 11th in the long jump at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Denied the chance to compete in the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of a Canadian boycott, she defeated all the Olympic medallists in a meet a few weeks after the Games.
She was co-winner of Canada's female athlete of the year in 1975 and won the award again in 1978.
Diane was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1978. She was inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 1980 and the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame in 1986.
Diane was a chef de mission of the Canadian team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
She married John Konihowski, also an inductee into the University of Saskatchewan Athletic Wall of Fame.
