Back to the Olympics Newsfeed

Tessa Jowell, Who Pushed for London’s Olympics, Dies at 70

LONDON — Tessa Jowell, a former British culture secretary who played a key role in securing the 2012 London Olympics and used her own cancer diagnosis to campaign for better treatment, died on Saturday at her home in Warwickshire. She was 70.

Her family confirmed the death in a statement. Ms. Jowell learned last year that she had a brain tumor.

Ms. Jowell was a Labour Party stalwart who served under Prime Minister Tony Blair as the secretary of state for culture, media and sport from 2001 until 2007, and then as a minister and shadow minister until 2011.