At our Senior House Assembly on Friday 13th September, we welcomed Mark Ryan. Mark is a distinguished writer on the history of athletics. In 2012, to coincide with the London Olympics, he brought out a biography of the British sprinter and Olympic gold medallist Harold Abrahams. He brought out a revised version of this book to coincide with the 2024 Paris Olympics, working in material on another gold medallist, Eric Liddell. A question and answer format was adopted with Academic-in-Residence Richard McMillan.
Pupils learnt about the differences between sport and the Olympics one-hundred years ago and now, and these were many. An athlete such as Keely Hodgkinson, who this year won gold for Great Britain in the 800m, would not have been allowed to compete one-hundred years ago as it was felt than middle-distance running was too tiring for women. The Olympics as a whole was much less high-profile: it was only later that various regimes were to grasp the propaganda potential of staging these games. Athletes were younger, did much less training and combined training with work or full-time study. The phenomenon of the professional sportsman was much less usual.
Mark made the point that one-hundred years ago athletes competed for the sheer joy of running rather than for financial inducement, which in the case of the Olympics did not exist. He exhorted pupils to pursue activities for which they had a real passion as this was likely to be much more fulfilling than simply seeking material reward. The talk gave rise to a number of questions from pupils and it is clear that they learnt a great deal from hearing about this slightly rarified but undeniably interesting subject. We are very grateful to Mark for taking the trouble to come and see us.
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