With the tragic deaths of Yuliya Balykina, Laurent Vidal and Arnold Peralta, it is perhaps chilling to note that in the years since the London Olympic Games ended we have lost 18 men and women who competed at those Games. One competitor from the Sochi Olympics of 2014 has also passed away.

UPDATED 4 March 2016

Keitani Graham
Micronesia – Wrestling
Died 7 December 2012
Just 4 months after competing in the light-heavyweight section of the Greco-Roman wrestling tournament at London 2012, Keitani Graham suffered a fatal heart attack. He was just 32.

Burry Stander
South Africa – Cycling (Mountain biking)
Died 3 January 2013
An Olympian in Beijing and London, Burry Stander narrowly missed a medal in 2012 after being involved in the five man breakaway that decided the podium positions. He was killed after being hit by a taxi whilst on a training ride.

Andrew Simpson
Great Britain – Sailing
Died 9 May 2013
From amongst the competitors at London 2012 to have passed away, Simpson is the only British Olympic champion. The 2008 gold medallist was a crew member of the Swedish America’s Cup boat, Artemis Racing, when the catamaran capsized whilst training on San Francisco Bay. Simpson was trapped beneath the water line and rescuers were unable to revive him.

Yelena Ivashchenko
Russia – Judo
Died 15 June 2013
A medal favourite at the London Olympics, heavyweight judoka Yelena Ivashchenko was instead eliminated at the quarter final phase. Allied to this a serious leg injury also threatened to end her sporting career and the former European Champion was reportedly suffering from severe depression when she committed suicide by jumping from a 15th story window of her apartment block.

Billy Ward
Australia – Boxing
Died 4 August 2013
A farm boy from rural Queensland, Billy Ward represented Australia in the light-flyweight division at London 2012. Another Olympian to have suffered from depression, he is the 2nd on this list to have committed suicide. At just 20 years of age he is the youngest 2012 Olympian to have passed away.

Abdelrahman El-Trabily
Egypt – Wrestling
Died 16 August 2013
The 2011 African Championship silver medallist, El-Trabily was a graduate of Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University and a teacher of the Quran by profession. He was shot and killed while taking part in a protest march in favour of the ousted President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jakkrit Panichpatikum
Thailand – Shooting
Died 19 October 2013
A few months after returning from London Jakkrit Panichpatikum was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of his wife and mother-in-law and numerous other offences. Released on bail, he was sitting in his car when he was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting. His mother-in-law later confessed to have arranged the hit.

Christian López
Guatemala – Weightlifting
Died 6 November 2013
Super-heavyweight weightlifter Christian López competed at both the Beijing and London Olympics for his native Guatemala. The accountancy student passed away in late 2012 after suffering from a severe bout of Pneumonia.

Besik Kudukhov
Russia – Wrestling
Died 29 December 2013
Kudukov was the second medallist from the 2012 Games to have passed away. A 4 time world champion and Olympic medal winner in both 2008 and 2012, Kudukhov lost control over his car on the Kavkaz highway near Armavir and collided with a truck coming from the opposite direction. Kudukhov died at the scene.

Elena Baltacha
Great Britain – Tennis
Died 4 May 2014
A former top 50 player and British number one, Baltacha was diagnosed with an aggressive form of liver cancer in January 2014 and succumbed to the disease five months later.

Camille Muffat
France – Swimming
Died 9 March 2015
A winner of 4 European titles and 4 medals at the World championships, Muffat’s greatest moment came at the London Games when won the gold medal at 400m freestyle. She was voted France’s Sportswoman of the Year for her achievement. Muffat died in a helicopter accident during the filming of a reality show for French television. She was the first London 2012 Olympic champion to pass away.

Alexis Vastine
France – Boxing
Died 9 March 2015
Although he won silver at the European championships and bronze at the Beijing Olympics, Vastine was best known for being desperately unlucky to be on the wrong end of what felt to be two unjust decisions during his Olympic career. Like Muffat he was a victim of the helicopter disaster during filming of a TV show for the TF1 TV network.

Alexis Vastine

Daundre Burnaby
Canada – Athletics
Died 27 March 2015
The Jamaican born 400 m runner competed for Canada in London and at the 2014 Commonwealth Games where he was a semi-finalist. Burnaby drowned in the ocean off St. Kitts in the Caribbean where he was taking part in a training camp with his Canadian team mates.

Trevor Moore
USA – Sailing
Died 25 June 2015
Trevor Moore took an inflatable powerboat out from the US Sailing Centre in Miami on the morning of June. The boat was found drifting later the same day with no sign of Moore but with his belongings still inside. US Coastguard and Florida authorities searched for him but no trace has ever been found.

Yuliya Balykina
Belarus – Athletics
Died 28 October 2015
Yuliya Balykina competed in the sprint relay in London but her career virtually ended shortly afterwards when she received a two year ban for a doping offence. After her ban ended in summer 2015 she began to pursue a career as a personal trainer.
On the 28 October 2015 she suddenly disappeared and was never seen alive again. Three weeks later her dead body was found concealed in woodlands outside Minsk. An ex-boyfriend is currently in jail awaiting trial for her murder.

Laurent Vidal
France – Triathlon
10 November 2015
A consistent performer on the world scene, Vidal headed the ITU rankings in mid 2012 and was one of the medal favourites for the London Olympics. He finished the race in 5th position which was an improvement on his 36th place finish in 2008.
In 2014 Vidal suffered a heart attack while doing swim training and had to be placed in an induced coma for him to survive, which ended his triathlon career. Unfortunately, only one year later, Vidal sustained another cardiac arrest and died at age 31. At the time of his death, he was engaged to New Zealander and world-class triathlete Andrea Hewitt.

Arnold Peralta
Honduras – Football
10 December 2015
A right-sided midfielder, Peralta started his career with Honduran side C.D.S. Vida before joining Scottish team Glasgow Rangers in 2013 and helped his new team win the Scottish League One in 2013-14. He returned to his home country in 2015 to join Olimpia. Five days after Olimpia were defeated in the semi-finals of the national championships Peralta was gunned down by unknown assailants as he walked through in a shopping mall in his home town.

Sarah Outhwaite-Tait
Australia – Rowing
3 March 2016
After reaching finals at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics the height of Sarah Tait’s Olympic career came at London 2012 when she won the silver medal as part of Australia’s coxless pair. In 2014 she was diagnosed with the cervical cancer that eventually claimed her life.
 

In addition, one competitor from the Sochi Olympics has died.
Nikolay Khrenkov
Russia – Bobsleigh
Died 2 June 2014
Less than four months after he was part of the Russian second string crew in Sochi, Nikolay Khrenkov was killed when his car was involved in a head-on collision near the town of Krasnoyarsk.

Two others who had a role at the London Olympics are also not with us anymore.

Mark Sutton
Died 14 August 2013
The stuntman who parachuted from a helicopter above the stadium during the opening ceremony dressed as James Bond. He died in a wing suit flying accident in the Swiss alps.

Sergei Ovchinnikov
Died 29 August 2012
Less than three weeks after the end of the 2012 Games, Russian volleyball coach Sergei Ovchinnikov committed suicide in his hotel room in Croatia

The figures from the previous Olympics are as follows;
2008 Olympians who died before the London Games = 15
2004 Olympians who died before the Beijing Games = 19

see also http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/vo/walther-von-mumm-1.html

Born 13 January 1887 in Frankfurt am Main, Hessen (GER)
Died 10 August 1959 in Göppingen, Baden-Württemberg (GER)

[table]
Year,Sport,Event,Place,
1932, Bobsleigh, Four man,7

[/table]

A member of the family that founded the Mumm champagne business, Walther von Mumm was known as a horseman, a pioneer aviator and especially as a balloonist. Before the First World War he regularly took part in long distance balloon races all over North America including major races at St. Louis and Kansas City. The second son of Baron von Mumm, Walther was given control of the H.G. Mumm Extra Dry Company and with clever advertising turned the brand into a major name, notably in the American market. When his brother, Henri, unexpectedly died he took over as head of the entire Mumm Company and inherited the estimated $20,000,000 family fortune. In 1912 he became engaged to Frances Scoville, an American heiress, but before this had been made public he travelled from St. Moritz to Paris to break this news to his former mistress, Marie von Rensimer. A former waitress from Philadelphia, von Rensimer was considered one of the world’s great beauties and had a string of wealthy lovers and admirers. This meeting ended disastrously for von Mumm, the precise details of incident were hushed up but what is clear is that Walther ended with two bullets in his left lung after Marie had pulled a gun on him.

Although the von Mumm family had resided in France for over a hundred years, Walther had himself been born in Germany and on the outbreak of World War I was considered an enemy subject. Instead of internment in France for the period of the war he chose to return to Germany. Walther refused to fight on the Western Front out of a loyalty to his French upbringing and instead served against the Russians on the Eastern front. He was wounded, again in the lung, by Russian gunfire.

The years immediately after the war were disastrous; the French government claimed the entire Mumm business empire as part of the reparation process against Germany, he was estranged from his wife, who later died following an appendectomy, and was involved in a lengthy custody battle over his daughter. His remaining business interests in Germany, still valued in millions of dollars, were lost after the collapse of the reichsmark and German hyper-inflation. He still had the rights to the Mumm brand in the United States but the introduction of prohibition meant this was rendered worthless overnight. With what remained of his fortune he invested in Wall Street and again amassed a substantial fortune before the Wall Street crash of 1929 left him penniless.

Von Mumm took a job in a brokerage firm and rented a $10 dollar a month room in a New York boarding house whilst concealing his financial plight from his friends. In October 1931, whilst staying at a friend’s house, he attempted suicide. Leaving a note with the words, “Bury me as I am and keep this out of the newspapers”, he attempted to shoot himself in the heart, but he missed and for a fourth time suffered a bullet wound to the same lung. Although the initial prognosis was poor, he rallied and eventually made a recovery. The Winter Olympics were held four months later in Lake Placid and the German bobsleigh team suffered a number of serious crashes which left them very short of personnel. Walther von Mumm had some previous bobsleigh experience in St. Moritz and remarkably was called to drive the Germany II bob with a completely inexperienced team, they finished in seventh place.

The first female Olympic champion

See also http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/de/helene-countess-de-pourtales-1.html

Born
28 April 1868 in New York, New York (USA)
Died
2 November 1945 in Genève (Geneva) (SUI)

[table]
Year-Sport,Event,Place,
1900, Sailing, Open class,AC
,,1-2 ton class Race 1,Gold
,,1-2 ton class Race 2,Silver

[/table]

On 22 May 1900 she was part of the crew of the yacht Lérina which won the first of the two regattas in the 1-2 ton class, and three days later the same crew placed second in the second race of that class. This made her the first woman to compete at the Olympics and the first female Olympic medalist.

She was born Helen Barbey, to parents Henry Barbey and Mary Lorillard Barbey – the latter from a very wealthy family, in which Pierre Lorillard had founded a tobacco empire. Her father was an affluent banker. In 1891, in the American church of Saint-Trinité in Paris, she married Hermann Alexandre, Count de Pourtalès, the son of Alexandre and Augusta Saladin, from an old Huguenot family. He was a captain in the Cuirassiers de la Garde regiment in the Prussian Army. They had three daughters. She inherited a passion for horses from her mother’s side of the family (Pierre Lorillard was the first American owner to win the British Derby in 1881, with the horse Iroquois), and a love for sailing. The Lorillards were central figures in the Newport community, where America’s Cup regattas were held in that era. In one of her diaries, later sold by auction, Hélène provides a vivid description of watching the 1887 America’s Cup. Hélène de Pourtalès lived in Paris and Géneve, and in 1900, she watched the Olympic golf tournament, in which her husband’s cousin Jacques was a course referee. Hélène had a dual passport, Swiss and American, while her husband had dual Swiss-German nationality.

Born 26 April 1909 in Cloughjordan (IRL)
Died 10 April 2012 in Killiney (IRL)

[table]
Year,Sport,Event,Place,
1948, Fencing, individual foil,7 p1 r1/4

[/table]

Dorothy Dermody, the daughter of a ship’s captain, spent her youth traveling aboard her father’s vessels. In order to circumvent rules that permitted the captain only one female companion, her father would cut her hair short and dress her as a young boy so that both mother and daughter could accompany him on his journeys. While sailing she was referred to as “Tommy”, a name that she retained in her athletic endeavors. She played lacrosse and squash at the national level, but was most accomplished in the fields of diving and fencing. She captured Irish championships in both sports, but it was for her skills in the former that she was offered the chance to compete at the 1948 Summer Olympics. When the time came, however, she requested to be entered into the fencing tournament instead. Her wish was granted, but she failed to advance beyond the opening round of the individual foil after losing all of her bouts.

Even outside of active competition, Dermody’s life revolved around athletics and she served as a teacher of physical education in several different capacities, most notably at Alexandra College from 1943 through 1958. She also took her love of sport public, heading campaigns to get playgrounds in every school in the country and to get children more involved in aquatic activities. At her death in 2012 she was Ireland’s oldest living Olympic competitor and the longest-lived Olympic fencer of all time.

Born 24 April 1927 in Mamer (LUX)
Died 7 July 1992 in Luxembourg (LUX)

[table]
Year-Sport,Event,Place,
1948, Athletics,800m,6h1 r2/3
,,1500m,10
1952,,1500m, Gold
1956,,1500m, 10 h1 r1/2

[/table]

Josy Barthel’s abilities as a middle-distance runner were discovered during World War II. He first came to fameby winning the 800 metres at the 1947 Military World Championships. In 1948 he won both 800 and 1,500 metre events at the Military World Championships. At the 1948 London Olympics Barthel finished ninth in the 1,500 metre final. He then won Student World Championships in 1949 (1,500 m) and 1951 (800 m and 1,500 m). The absolute high point of Barthel’s career was the 1952 Summer Olympics, where he surprised the crowd and himself by winning the 1,500 with a strong finish. He participated at the 1956 Olympics, after which he retired. He was Luxembourg champion in the 800 and 1,500 from 1946-56. From 1962-72 Barthel was president of the Luxembourg Athletics Federation and then from 1973-77 was the president of the Luxembourgish Olympic and Sporting Committee. He was also in the Luxembourg government, serving as Minister for Transport, Minister for Energy and Minister for the Environment from 1977-84.

[table]

Year-Sport,Event,Finish,Medal

1912 Athletics,800 metres,AC h5 r1/3,

1912 Athletics,1500 metres,6,

1920 Athletics,800 metres,1 h3 r1/3,

1920 Athletics,1500 metres,2,Silver

[/table]

Philip John Baker was born in London on 1 November 1889, one of seven children of Canadian-born parents. He was raised in a Quaker home. His parents moved to England when his father, Joseph Allen Baker, was asked to establish a British branch of his father’s engineering business. In London, Joseph Baker became a member of the London County Council and later served in the House of Commons on the Liberal ticket, beginning in 1905. Thus, his upbringing gave him exposure to both politics and peaceful ways.

Philip Baker attended the Bootham School in York, after which he spent several years at a Quaker school in Philadelphia, Haverford College. He returned to England to earn his degrees from King’s College, Cambridge, earning honors in history (1910) and economics (1912). He received an M.A. with honors from Cambridge in 1913.

Baker ran for Cambridge and joined the Cambridge Athletic Club. He represented Haverford in the IC4A championships in 1907, finishing fifth in the 880 yards. For Cambridge he won the 880 yards against Oxford in 1910, 1911, and 1912, and the mile in 1909 and 1911. At the Cambridge University AC sports days, he won the mile in 1910 and both the half-mile and mile in 1911 and 1912. He ran three times at the AAA Championships, finishing fifth in the 1910 mile, fourth in the 1911 mile, and participating on the winning medley relay team in 1920.

Baker eventually ran for Great Britain at the 1912 and 1920 Olympic Games. At Stockholm, he failed to survive the first round of the 800 metres. In the 1,500 metres, he qualified for the final, but sacrificed his own chances to pace his teammate, Arnold Jackson. Jackson won the gold medal, and Baker finished sixth. At Antwerp in 1920, Baker again ran in the 800 metres. He qualified for the semi-finals, but did not start in that round. In the 1,500 metres, he ran well, but was narrowly beaten by his teammate, Albert Hill, and earned a silver medal.

Baker’s fame came from his career after sports. As a Quaker pacifist, he rejected combat service in World War I, but commanded the Friends’ Ambulance Corps, serving at the front in France, and earning decorations for valor. He was later an adjutant in a British ambulance unit in Italy, and earned the British Silver Medal for Military Valor, and the Italian War Cross. In 1915, Philip Baker married Irene Noel, and would eventually take her name, being known as Philip Noel-Baker from the late thirties onward. They eventually had one child, Francis, a son born in 1920.

After the war, Noel-Baker was an assistant to Robert Cecil at the Paris Peace Conference and he helped draft the Covenant of the League of Nations. He was later named chief assistant to the secretary-general of the League, Eric Drummond, until 1922. During this time, he became associated with Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian explorer and humanitarian, who became known for his work on behalf of war refugees.

In 1924, Noel-Baker became Sir Ernest Cassell Professor of international relations at the University of London. He was elected to Parliament from Coventry in 1929, serving two years. In 1926 he wrote two books, The League of Nations at Work, and Disarmament, which earned him a reputation as an expert on disarmament. He was later (1932) appointed the parliamentary private secretary to Arthur Henderson, chairman of the World Disarmament Conference convened in Geneva in 1932. He was re-elected to Parliament in 1936 and held a seat representing Derby until 1970.

During World War II, Noel-Baker served as official spokesman for the War Ministry in the House of Commons. In 1945, when the Labour Party returned to power, he was made minister of state, a non-cabinet position under the foreign secretary. In that capacity, he headed the British delegation to the United Nations Preparatory Commission, and later served on the subcommittee that drew up the preliminary agenda for the United Nations General Assembly. He served as Secretary of State for Air from 1946-1947, and Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations from 1947-1950.

Noel-Baker was a forceful advocate of arms control, and later served on the U.N. Economic and Social Council. His final book was published in 1958, The Arms Race: A Programme for World Disarmament. It was a comprehensive analysis of the history of disarmament with practical suggestions for the future course of the policy, and in 1960 was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Book Prize.

In 1959, for his work with the League of Nations, the United Nations, his lifetime commitment to peace, his work on behalf of war refugees, and his vast knowledge of disarmament, Philip John Noel-Baker was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. During his Nobel Prize lecture, he spoke of the threat posed by nuclear weapons and the arms race. He declared that the solution lay, not in partial measures, but in a comprehensive and complete program of disarmament under the United Nations. “Disarmament is … for every nation,” he stated, “the safest and most practicable system of defense.”

Noel-Baker retired from the House of Commons at age 80, declaring, “While I have the health and strength, I shall give all my time to the work of breaking the dogmatic sleep of those who allow the nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional arms race to go on.” In 1977, Philip John Noel-Baker was made a life peer as Baron Noel-Baker of Derby. He died in London on 9 October 1982.

Personal Bests: 800 – 1:55.9y (1912); 1500 – 4:01.0 (1912).

Born
12 May 1869 in Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen (GER)

Died
24 March 1946 in Charlottenburg, Berlin (GER)

http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/sc/carl-schuhmann-1.html

[table]
Year,Sport,Event,Place,Medal
1896,Athletics,Triple Jump,5,
,,Shot put,AC,
,,Long Jump,AC,
,Gymnastics,Vault,1,Gold
,,Horizontal Bar,AC,
,,Rings, 5,
,,Parallel Bars,AC,
,,Pommel Horse,AC,
,,Parallel Bars Team,1,Gold
,, Horizontal Bar Team, 1,Gold
,Wrestling,Greco-Roman unlimited weight,1,Gold
,Weightlifting,Two-handed,4,
[/table]

Only six athletes have competed in four Olympic sports: three of them did so at the 1896 Olympics (with low participations), and three participated in four different skiing disciplines. The most successful of this sextet is Carl Schuhmann. The German was first and foremost a gymnast. He won three first prizes in Athens, individually in the horse vault, and twice with the German team. With the exception of rope climbing, he competed in all gymnastic events.

His second sport was wrestling. In the small field of five, the native Berliner competed against home favorite Tsitas. The final lasted for forty minutes when it had to be postponed due to darkness setting in. The following morning, Schuhmann decided the contest in his favor, but he remained very popular with the Greek public. The tiny (1.58 m) Schuhmann further competed in weightlifting and athletics, but did not place among the first three.

The 1896 Olympics were the biggest success in Schuhmann’s career, although he had several good showings at the annual German Turnfest. He did remain involved in the Olympics, visiting Athens for a second time in 1906 as a guest of honor and German team leader. Two years later, he was Germany’s team attaché in London, the city where had been a gymnastics teacher since 1898. One of his pupils, Otto Bauscher, represented Great Britain at the 1908 Games. His final Olympic appearance was in 1936, when he was even part of a gymnastics exhibition and tribute in the Olympic Stadium, despite being well into his 60s.

Born
12 January 1873 in Marousi, Athina (GRE)

Died
26 March 1940 in Marousi, Athina (GRE)

[table]

Year,Sport,Event,Place,Medal

1896,Athletics,Marathon,1, Gold,
[/table]

http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/lo/spyros-louis-1.html

As the winner of the first Olympic marathon at Athens in 1896 Spyridon Louis’s place in sporting history is assured. Having placed only fifth in one of the Greek trial races, he was not favored to win the Olympic title but his unexpected triumph gave Greece its only victory in a track & field athletics event at the 1896 Olympics Games and Louis was accorded the status of a national hero. Despite the acclaim, Louis returned to his village of Amarousi, where he worked as a shepherd and mineral water seller, and he never raced again. He later became a rural police officer, but lost his job when he was imprisoned on charges of falsifying military documents in 1926. He spent more than a year in jail before his trial on 28 June 1927, when was acquitted. He remained an Olympic legend and was a guest of the Organizing Committee at the 1936 Games in Berlin. The 2004 Olympic Stadium was built in Amarousi, and named after him.

Personal Best: Mar – 2-58:50 (1896).

Born
9 June 1874 in Mumbai, Maharashtra (IND)
Died
8 August 1930 in Melbourne, Victoria (AUS)

[table]

Year,Sport,Event,Place,Medal

1896,Athletics,100m,3 h2 r1/2,,
,Gymnastics,Rope Climb,5,,
,Weightlifting, One-Handed,1,Gold
,,Two-handed,2,Silver
,Wrestling,Greco-Romam Heavyweight,4,,
1900,Athletics,Discus,11,,

[/table]

Britain’s first Olympic champion, Launceston Elliott was born in India to Charles Elliot and his third wife Ann, but he was named for the Tasmanian city in which he was conceived. He spent part of his early childhood in Australia and it was only when his father, a kinsman of the Earls of Minto gave up his post as a magistrate in India in 1887 and returned to farm in Essex that young Launceston saw England for the first time. He soon showed a keen interest in weightlifting and in 1891 at the age of 16, at which time he was already a pupil of the great Eugen Sandow, he entered for the first British weightlifting championship and made a creditable showing in a contest won by Lawrence Levy. In 1894 he won the British title and in 1896 he went to Athens for the first modern Olympic Games.

Elliot was often described as one of the most handsome men of his generation and he certainly appealed to the Greeks. The 1906 Official Report noted: “this young man attracted universal admiration by his uncommon beauty. He was of impressive stature, tall, well-proportioned, his hair and complexion of surprising fairness”. Clearly the Englishman created something of a stir in Athens and one paper carried the report that “his handsome figure procured for him an offer of marriage from a highly-placed lady admirer”. Elliot was evidently not distracted by the publicity – he won the one-handed lift and his second place in the two-handed rested on a disputed decision. He raised the same weight as the winner, Viggo Jensen of Denmark, but as Elliot moved one of his feet during the lift, the Dane was awarded first prize on the basis of having a “superior style”. In Athens, Elliot also ran in the 100 metres, took part in the rope-climbing event and was fourth in the Greco-Roman heavyweight wrestling.

In 1899 he literally went from strength to strength and set four new British records at the amateur championships. Around 1905, he turned professional and put on a Music Hall act with a partner named Montague Spencer. The two strongmen performed amid scenery representing the Roman arena and, bedecked in the garb of gladiators, they engaged in a mock contest during which they used the cestus, trident, net and other weapons of the arena. At the end of the show, Elliot gave exhibitions of strength, the favorite of which was to support across his shoulders a long metal pole from which, at each end, was suspended a bicycle and rider. With this load Elliot would start revolving, slowly at first, but finally at such a speed that the “riders” would be swung into a horizontal position.

Despite being offered the hand of a “highly-placed lady” in Athens, Elliot married Emelia Holder, the daughter of a Kentish vicar, in 1897. In 1923, they settled in Australia, the scene of Launceston’s early childhood, and he became an honored member of a group of old-time athletes. In 1930, he failed to recover from an operation for cancer of the spine and is buried in the Fawker Cemetary in Melbourne.

Born
28 October 1868 in South Boston, Massachusetts (USA)

Died
20 January 1957 in Brookline, Massachusetts (USA)

See also http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/co/james-b-connolly-1.html

[table]

Year,Sport,Event,Place,Medal

1896,Athletics,Triple Jump,1,Gold
,,High Jump,2,Silver
,,Long Jump,3,Bronze
1900,Athletics,Triple Jump,2,Silver
(1906),Athletics,Triple Jump,AC,
,,Long Jump, AC,
[/table]

For purely historical reasons, James Connolly must be considered the most distinguished of all United States Olympians because, on 6 April 1896, he became the first winner at the Modern Olympic Games and the first known Olympic champion in over 1,500 years. In addition to his triple jump crown, Connolly won medals in the high jump and long jump. One can safely assume that this victory adequately compensated Connolly for the decision he had made at Boston some two months earlier. Connolly’s dean at Harvard had counselled him not to make the trip to Athens because his low academic standing might prejudice his being readmitted to the university upon his return. Connolly, however, entertained no doubts as to his priorities and walked out of Harvard, not setting foot there until 50 years later when, as a well-known writer of Gloucester fishing stories, he was invited to speak on literature before the Harvard Union. In 1898, Connolly was with the 9th Massachusetts Infantry at the Siege of Santiago, but in 1900 he again sought Olympic honors. He improved on his 1896 winning mark, but had to settle for second place behind Meyer Prinstein. Connolly missed the 1904 Olympics but competed in 1906, failing to make a valid jump in either the long or triple jump. Connolly later served in the Navy and in 1912 he ran for Congress as a Progressive, although he was defeated. Connolly covered Pershing’s “punitive expedition” into Mexico for Colliers and in 1917 he became European naval correspondent for the magazine. He remained a writer for the rest of his life.

Personal Bests: HJ – 5-5 (1.65) (1896); LJ – 20-0½ (6.11) (1896); TJ – 45-10 (13.97) (1900).