AN Olympic blazer and a painted diploma belonging to Ada Smith, a bronze medal winning gymnast from Leigh, will be auctioned this month.

The 1928 Amsterdam Olympics were the first to have the Olympic Flame lit during the games, the first time the games were sponsored by Coca-Cola, and the first time women were allowed to compete in the athletics and gymnastics events.

It was also the only time Great Britain have won a female gymnastics medal.

The British women’s team picked up the All-Around bronze medal that year, losing out to the Netherlands and Italy who won Gold and Silver.

Ada Smith, who was 24 at the time, was one of the team and brought home her medal as well as a blazer embroidered with the Union Flag along with the words “Olympic Games 1928 Gymnastics”, and a framed painted diploma with her name on it.

Also included in the sale at Adam Partridge Auctioneers of Macclesfield, Cheshire, will be a photograph of Ada along with her gymnastics team mates all wearing their official blazers.

Ada was born in Leigh in 1903 and was a member of the Marsh Gymnasium in Ullswater Street, off Railway Road, from 1914. After her Olympic success, she married in 1947 and died in Atherton in August 1994.

These items were given as a gift by Ada to the current vendor before she passed away. Adam Partridge, who has regularly appeared on television programmes such as Flog It and Bargain Hunt, is confident the items will do well in the sale; “Olympic memorabilia is very popular at the moment for obvious reasons, and with Ada being one of the first and last females to win a gymnastics medal for Team GB, it makes these particular items all the more important."

The items will be for sale at Adam Partridge Auctioneers on August 16 and 17 and the catalogue will be able to be viewed online at www.adampartridge.co.uk