{"id":585025,"date":"2024-05-06T01:09:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T08:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=585025"},"modified":"2024-05-06T14:10:59","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T21:10:59","slug":"australias-historic-manly-swimming-club-celebrates-100-years-of-olympic-dreams-to-paris-and-back-from-1924-to-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/australias-historic-manly-swimming-club-celebrates-100-years-of-olympic-dreams-to-paris-and-back-from-1924-to-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Historic Manly Swimming Club Celebrates 100 Years of Olympic Dreams – To Paris And Back From 1924 to 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s Historic Manly Swimming Club Celebrates 100 Years of Olympic Dreams \u2013 To Paris And Back From 1924 to 2024.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manly Swimming Club, one of Australia\u2019s oldest and most distinguished swimming clubs, will this Saturday night host a sell-out Gala Dinner to celebrate 100 Years of Olympic Dreams \u2013 to Paris and back from 1924 to 2024.<\/p>\n

A glittering trip down swimming\u2019s memory lanes at the beachside Manly Pacific Hotel with a gathering of over 200 people celebrating the centenary of the 1924 Paris Olympics and the influence that Manly\u2019s northern beaches region and its athletes have played in creating significant sporting pathways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about celebrating the past, honouring our present and planning for the future,\u201d said Manly Swimming Club president, Matthew Patterson, the driving force behind the centenary celebration.<\/p>\n

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AUSTRALIA SENDS BOY WHO DOES A MAN’S JOB: Andrew “Boy” Charlton, Paris 1924 Olympic champion at 17, Photo Courtesy Official History Australian Olympic Committee:Harry Gordon<\/p><\/div>\n

The 1924 Paris Games is hugely significant to the Manly Swimming Club as its very own legend, Andrew \u201cBoy\u201d Charlton <\/strong>triumphed to Olympic gold in the 1500m freestyle \u2013 one of Australia\u2019s greatest ever Olympic feats from a boy who turned just 17 on the eve of the swimming competition, celebrating with a world record in his Olympic debut in the heats of the 1500m freestyle.<\/p>\n

Dispelling doubts that he had struggled to maintain his form and fitness in a disrupted lead up to the Games, as author of \u201cThey Called Him Boy\u201d<\/em> the late Peter Fenton<\/strong> wrote: \u201cThough reserved by nature he was extremely confident in knowing exactly what he had to do. Still a boy out of the water, he was a man in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlton had announced himself to the swimming world at just 15 years of age in the Sydney summer of 1922-23 when he won the NSW State half-mile championship \u2013 19 seconds inside the world record.<\/p>\n

He later defeated \u201cThe Swedish Sturgeon\u201d the great Arne Borg<\/strong> \u2013 the man regarded as the world greatest middle-distance and distance swimmer over 440 yards at Sydney\u2019s Domain Baths (later christened the Andrew \u201cBoy\u201d Charlton Baths) \u2013 in front of more than 7000 people in a series of match races in that summer) a period that captured the imagination of the harbour city like nothing before.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoy\u201d then surviving a long and traumatic 50-day journey via boat and train to Paris from Sydney to become Australia\u2019s third individual Olympic swimming gold medallist \u2013 joining Freddie Lane<\/strong> (200m freestyle; 200m obstacles; Paris 1900) and Fanny Durack<\/strong> (100m freestyle; Stockholm 1912).<\/p>\n

MAN OVERBOARD<\/a><\/p>\n

It was a memorable Games for Manly, a club established in 1903, with Charlton also winning 400m freestyle bronze in a race for the ages, before also joining another Manly teenager, his best friend, Ernest Henry<\/strong> in the silver-medal winning Australian 4x200m freestyle that finished second behind the star-studded US team, led by the legendary five-time Olympic gold medallist, he of Tarzan fame, Johnny Weissmuller.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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HIGH FLYER: Olympic 10m Platform champion Dick Eve at6 the Paris 1924 Olympics. \u00a0Photo Courtesy IOC Archives Lausanne.<\/p><\/div>\n

Manly also celebrated gold to Richmond \u201cDick\u201d Eve<\/strong> in the 10m Platform Diving \u2013 Eve\u2019s father Sid, the proprietor of the Manly Baths and home of the Manly Swimming Club – while Manly fireman Nick Winter<\/strong> won Australia\u2019s third gold \u2013 the first ever field gold medal in the hop, step and jump (triple jump).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have actually tracked down the relatives of Ernest Henry and Dick Eve who will be attending on the night and both families very excited and who will also bring down some precious medals and memorabilia that play such a significant part in our history,\u201d said Patterson.<\/p>\n

Adding to the Manly connection was the Australian Olympic Team\u2019s manager Ossie Merrett,<\/strong> secretary of the Australian Olympic Federation, a Manly local and Manly Swimming Club and Manly Rugby Club secretary along with Charlton\u2019s mentor and trainer, World War I veteran Tommy Adrian<\/strong> (travelling with the team as Charlton\u2019s mentor) who suffered a breakdown on the voyage to Paris, in one of the most dramatic chapters in the colourful Australian Olympic history.<\/p>\n

It is significant in the Manly Swimming Club annals to recall just how Charlton\u2019s feats were documented (along with his record breaking with split times) in the club\u2019s official 1923-24 Annual Report, written so formally by the Hon. Race Secretary (and how history remembers it) with the foresight to record the events of the time.<\/p>\n