Historic Olympic Milestones Featuring A Banned Future Lord Mayor And The Making Of Two US Film stars

Australian Team for 1924 Paris Opening ceremony

ON THE MARCH: The team from "Australie" preparing for the Opening Ceremony in Paris in 1924.Photo: Australian Olympic Archives

Centenary of The Australian Olympic Council

To mark this week’s 100 year anniversary of the formation of the Australian Olympic Council and breakaway from the combined Australasian teams with New Zealand, the Australian Olympic Committee has reflected back on a century of Australian Olympic sports, that began in Antwerp in 1920.

And here at Swimming World we have adapted this Century of historic Olympic activity to feature the major Australian swimming performances and what emerged as a special rivalry and friendships between the world’s two pre-eminent swimmimg nations – Australia and the USA.

It was at the Antwerp Games where the first Australia-only Olympic team competed, with a 13-member team winning two silver medals and a bronze.

IVAN STEDMAN AND FRANK BEAUREPAIRE at the Tourelles Baths in 1924

FRENCH CONNECTION: Australians Ivan Stedman (Left) and Frank Beaurepaire pictured at the Tourelles Baths in Paris in 1924.Photo Courtesy: Swimming Australia Limited.

In swimming it was the men’s 4x200m freestyle team of Frank Beaurepaire, back from his medal-winning debut in London in 1908 and a ban from 1912, who joined Harry Hay, William Herald and Ivan Stedman to win silver behind a US team led by pioneer Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanomoku with the Americans setting a new world record.

Beaurepaire, who had won silver (400m freestyle) and bronze (1500m freestyle) 12 years earlier in London, added bronze in the 1500m behind Norman Ross from the US after the International Swimming Federation had banned Beaurepaire from the 1912 Games after he had accecpted a job with the Victorian Education Department on ther physical culture staff –deeming an infringeing his amateur status.

In 1924 in Paris, it was Manly’s wonderkid Andrew “Boy” Charlton who commenced Australia’s proud 1500m freestyle gold medal history.

Charlton, the son of a Manly bank manager, had created enormous interest before the Games when in front of a packed Domain Baths in Sydney Harbour he beat visiting Swedish star, world record holder Arne Borg, who heralded the stapping young teen by rowing him up the pool in a dinghy hailing the new king.

The pair then swapped world records in the heats in Paris before Charlton took a minute off Borg’s world mark to record a smashing gold medal victory in the final, with the ever present Beaurepaire back from suspension, adding a further bronze to his impressive record of one silver and two bronze in the 1500m.

TWO OF THE GREATS: Andrew “Boy” Charlton and Johnny Weissmuller who went on to become the most famous of all the Tarzans. Photo Courtesy: Swimming NSW.

Beaurepaire and Charlton then joined another Manly man in Ernie Henry, along with Moss Christie to again take silver in the 4x200m freestyle – with the US team that incuded “Tarzan” Johnny Weissmuller and becoming the first team to break 10 minutes.

While Charlton’s fellow Manly Swimming Club member Richmond “Dick’ Eve captured the plain highboard diving gold.

At the 1928 Amsterdam Games, it would be Weissmuller who relegated Borg and Charlton to silver add bronze in the 400m while Borg would win the 1500m ahead of another future US film star in Buster Crabbe with Charlton claiming bronze.

Crabbe would later swing into action to join Weissmuller as Tarzan, also playing Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and the filmstar would also play a major role in ensuring Australia’s Clare Dennis (pictured left) would be the leading lady in the women’s 200m breaststroke.

The 16-year-old Sydney schoolgirl set a new Olympic record in her heat before Crabbe advised her to take three underwater strokes on her dive and telling the Aussie to demoralise her opponents by leading at each turn.

FLOWER POWER: Olympic champion Clare Dennis who took advice from American Buster Crabbe before winning LA gold in 1932. Photo Courtesy: James Eve Collection.

Dennis followed the script to perfection and would beat Japan’s Hideko Maehata by the barest margin 0.1 in another Olympic record – in what was truly a “gold logie” performance.

The only other medal to Australia was silver to Philomena “Bonnie” Mealing in the 100m backstoke behind American beauty Eleanor Holm who withstood a charge from the Aussie to win the old.

Mealing had been the baby of the 1928 team and after a disappointing debut certainly made ammends in LA.

The Australian Government made contributions to send the Australian team to the 1920, 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games, but was unable to assist towards funding the Australian team to compete at Los Angeles in 1932 because of the Great Depression.

The 1936 Winter Olympics and the Olympic Games were staged in the highly politically charged environment of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Controversy raged whether the Berlin Games should proceed or not with Australia agreeing to send a team coming home with one bronze medal in track and field – with Percy Oliver the only swimming finalist in the 100m backstroke, among a five-strong swim team.

Inevitably, World War II broke out and the 1940 and 1944 Olympic Games, awarded first to Tokyo and then Helsinki, and London respectively, were cancelled. It wasn’t until London in 1948 that the four-year Olympic cycle resumed.

SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT: Olympic backstroke bronze medallist Judy Joy Davies, who became a popular Olympic Swimming correspondent with Melbourne’s News Sun Pictorial. Photo Courtesy: National Archives of Australia.

When peace was finally restored across Europe and in the Pacific, the Victorian Olympic Council held its first meeting in June 1946 where it resolved that Australia, in particular Melbourne, should bid for the 1956 Olympic Games.

The motion was endorsed by the AOF and was formally transmitted to the IOC on July 1, 1946.

Support for the bid was received by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sir Raymond Connelly, and a former Lord Mayor, the triple Olympic swimming medallist, the man who had been banned in 1912, who was by now Sir Frank Beaurepaire. They proved to be powerful allies.

Melbourne Invitation Committee members Beaurepaire, Connelly and Sir Harold Luxton, Australia’s IOC member, attended the 1948 London Olympics where John Marshall would win siver in the 100m freestyle; Nancy Lyons silver in the 200m breaststroke with future Olympics and swimming newspaper journalist Judy Joy Davies (100m backstroke) and Marshall (400m freestyle) both winning bronze.

The name Judy Joy became synonymous around the pool decks for many years as she continued to promote the sport she loved.

NEXT read how Melbourne won the race for the Games of 1956 beating six US cities Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Minneapolis who were all in the initial running.

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