Launceston Elliot
Fawkner Cemetery, Melbourne, Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Country | United Kingdom | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Weightlifting | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Launceston Elliot (9 June 1874 – 8 August 1930) was a British weightlifter, and the first athlete representing the United Kingdom to become an Olympic champion.[1]
Biography
Launceston Elliot was conceived in
In 1887, Elliot's father gave up his post in India and took his family to England where he began farming in
Continuing success encouraged the 21-year-old Elliot to travel to Athens for the first modern Olympic Games. At the time, there were no internationally accepted rules or classifications for weightlifting and the 1896 Olympics added further to the huge variety of classes contested on the contemporary scene. The two-handed lift came first on the program and, after a long drawn out contest, Viggo Jensen of Denmark and Elliot had both lifted 111.5 kilograms, but Prince George awarded the Dane first place for having done so in better style. Jensen's lift was accomplished with a superb clean lift whereas Elliot had certainly encountered difficulty. By contrast, the one-handed event was a short, sharp event. Elliot declined Prince George's courteous offer of a rest break but he asked that he might this time lift after Jensen, as in the two-handed event the Dane had the advantage of lifting after Elliot. The request was granted although the order of lifting was not to have a material effect on the result. Elliot raised 71.0 kilograms without difficulty whereas Jensen, who had injured his shoulder trying to raise 112.5 kilograms in the two-handed event, could only manage 57.0 kilograms and Britain's first Olympic champion was crowned.
Elliot also competed in the 100 metres in the athletics programme. He placed third in his heat and did not advance to the final. In the
He finished last of the five competitors in the rope climbing event on the gymnastics program.
Following his victory in Athens, he set four new records at the 1899 Amateur Championships and, as a prominent figure on the British weightlifting scene, his financial success was virtually assured. He also competed at the
Photographs of Launceston Elliot are featured among the distinguished Scottish athletes in the sport section of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (re-opened after a major refurbishment in 2011).
References
- ^ "Launceston Elliot". Olympedia. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
External links
- Launceston Elliot at Olympics.com
- Launceston Elliot at Team GB
- Launceston Elliot at the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame
- An article about Launceston Elliot by Ian Buchanan at the Wayback Machine (archived 24 January 2004)
- Launceston Elliot at Sandow Museum at the Wayback Machine (archived 23 April 2001)
- Oxford DNB entry