A NEW retirement living development will have a very special sporting guest partake in its official opening today (Thursday).

Dame Mary Peters, a pentathlon gold medallist at the 1972 Olympics, will undertake the official ribbon cutting ceremony at McCarthy and Stone's retirement living development, Rivers Edge Court, on Oaklands Drive.

Dame Mary had a career as an international athlete spanning almost two decades. In both the pentathlon and the shot, she turned in performances of a consistently high standing in international competition.

She took fourth place in the 1964 Olympic Games, second place in the shot at the 1966 Commonwealth Games, and first place in the pentathlon in both the 1970 and 1974 Commonwealth Games. Her crowning glory, however, came in 1972 when she won pentathlon gold at the Olympic Games in Munich.