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| Picture No | 10639411 |
| Date | 1928 |
| Description | Lord Burghley in the steeplechase at Stamford Bridge |
| Details |
400 metres hurdles gold medallist, Lord Burghley, at the water jump in the steeplechase at an athletics meeting at Stamford Bridge, shortly after his win at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games. David George Brownlow Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter (1905 - 1981), Lord Burghley was an athlete, sports official and Conservative party politician As an athlete, Burghley was a very keen practitioner who placed matchboxes on hurdles and practised knocking over the matchboxes with his lead foot without touching the hurdle. In 1927, his final year at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he amazed colleagues by sprinting around the Great Court at Trinity College in the time it took the college clock to toll 12 o'clock, inspiring the scene in the film Chariots of Fire (whose character Lord Andrew Lindsay is based upon Burghley) in which Harold Abrahams accomplishes the same feat. Lord Burghley did not allow his name to be used in the film because of the inaccurate historical depiction in the movie. There was never a race upon which Harold Abrahams beat Lord Burghley in this feat as the movie depicts. Burghley is also said to have set another unusual record by racing around the upper promenade deck of the Queen Mary in 57 seconds, dressed in everyday clothes. Burghley later served as president of the Amateur Athletic Association for 40 years, president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation for 30 years and as a member of the International Olympic Committee for 48 years. He was also chairman of the Organising Committee of the 1948 Summer Olympics.
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| Source | Photograph in the Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News, 11 August 1928 |
| Credit | © Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans |
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