Paris Olympics: From 1924 to 2024

Front Page Magazine ^ | 06/20/2024 | Lloyd Billingsley

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On July 26, the 2024 summer Olympic Games will kick off in Paris, as they did 100 years ago in 1924. Back stories from those games were dramatized in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, about Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell, an outgoing Christian, and Jewish athlete Harold Abrahams, younger brother of Sidney Abrahams, who represented Britain at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. Sidney was duly knighted, and Sir Sidney Solomon Abrahams served as chief justice of Ceylon during the 1930s. “Solly” was also the first Jew elected president of the London Athletic Club, founded in 1863. Younger brother Harold, born in 1899, followed in his footsteps but got off to a rough start.

At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Harold Abrahams failed to win a medal in the 100 and 200 meters and in the long jump placed a distant 20th. At Cambridge, on the other hand, Abrahams won victories over Oxford in sprints and the long jump. Chariots of Fire picks up the story when Abrahams, played by Ben Cross, is preparing for the 1924 Olympic games in Paris.

Aware that talent is not enough, Abrahams hires Scipio Africanus “Sam” Mussabini, the famed athletic coach of Italian, Syrian and French extraction. So in 1924, the UK was already a diverse, inclusive society. Mussabini (Ian Holm) shows Abrahams how to get the most out of his stride. The choice of a coach causes friction with snooty Cambridge officials, but Abrahams takes it as a challenge.

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[neverevergiveup]

Loved that movie, but back then many of the athletes were very wealthy and therefore could afford to train and not work. Different times..

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