Athletics Gallery

Harold Abrahams wins 100m - 1924 Olympics

Harold Maurice Abrahams, CBE, (18991978) - a British athlete of Jewish origin. He was champion in the 100 metres sprint at the 1924 Olympics in Paris (July 7th), France (a feat made legendary in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire'). His time was 10.6 seconds. Jackson Scholz (second from right) was second and Arthur Porritt (far left) was third. The other named athlete was the World Record holder at the time, Charles Paddock. The other two competitors featured were fourth placed Chester Bowman (second left) and sixth placed Loren Murchison (third from right).
1924

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

Caricature of Annette Kellerman - Swimmer and Actress

Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman (18861975) - Australian swimmer, film star, and writer. One of the first women to wear a one-piece bathing costume, causing a minor scandal at the time and opening debate (satirised here) about athletics making a girl more masculine and less feminine - a question posed by Dr Dudley A Sargent (of Harvard) in The Ladies Home Journal of March 1912. Date: circa 1909

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

Sketch cover featuring Lord Burghley in action

Lord Burghley, captain of Britain's Olympic team in 1932 jumping hurdles in a photograph on the front cover of The Sketch. David George Brownlow Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter (1905 - 1981), Lord Burghley was an athlete, sports official and Conservative party politician As an athlete, Burghley was a very keen practitioner who placed matchboxes on hurdles and practised knocking over the matchboxes with his lead foot without touching the hurdle. In 1927, his final year at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he amazed colleagues by sprinting around the Great Court at Trinity College in the time it took the college clock to toll 12 o'clock, inspiring the scene in the film Chariots of Fire (whose character Lord Andrew Lindsay is based upon Burghley) in which Harold Abrahams accomplishes the same feat. Lord Burghley did not allow his name to be used in the film because of the inaccurate historical depiction in the movie. There was never a race upon which Harold Abrahams beat Lord Burghley in this feat as the movie depicts. Burghley is also said to have set another unusual record by racing around the upper promenade deck of the Queen Mary in 57 seconds, dressed in everyday clothes. Burghley later served as president of the Amateur Athletic Association for 40 years, president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation for 30 years and as a member of the International Olympic Committee for 48 years. He was also chairman of the Organising Committee of the 1948 Summer Olympics. Date: 1932

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans