To celebrate the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London, we thought we’d post some historic newspaper stories that report on the final day of the 1908 Olympic Games. The highlight of the 1908 closing ceremony was the special cup presented by Queen Alexandra to the Italian marathon runner, Dorando Pietri. Western Times – Monday 27 July 1908 Image © Northcliffe Media Limited. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000265/19080727/063/0004 Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser – …

With the men’s Olympic marathon taking place in London this weekend, we thought we’d post some newspaper reports on perhaps the most amazing marathon even to take place at an Olympics – the marathon of the 1908 Games. The reason why this marathon is so famous is due to the collapse of the Italian runner, Dorando Pietri. Leading from the 24 mile mark, it looked as though Pietri would win the race. However, when Pietri arrived in White City Stadium …

With Usain Bolt winning the ‘Blue Riband’ event of the 100 metres at the London Olympics, we thought it’d be the perfect time to post some historical newspaper stories about Harold Abrahams, winner of the event in the 1924 Games, and ‘the Alabama Antelope’, Jesse Owens, who won the event in 1936. There are scores of fascinating stories about Harold Abrahams and Jesse Owens in the Archive. For example, you can read about Abrahams working as a commentator at later …

In all the Olympian excitement, it’s sometimes easy to forget that ‘Tarzan’ won three gold medals in swimming events at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, and two gold medals and one bronze at the 1928 Games in Amsterdam. I refer, of course, to the wonderful Johnny Weissmuller – who was the best ‘Tarzan’ of them all! Weissmuller was actually born in Pardany in Hungary in June 1904, but his parents emigrated to the USA in 1904. Ironically, only took up …

We love reading stories about Eric Liddell in the Archive. We think that the two newspaper reports included below offer a fascinating insight into his wonderful triumph at the 1924 Olympics and his life shortly afterwards. Liddell had been entered to run in the 100m (his best event), but the devout Christian decided not to race in the 100m as the heats took place on a Sunday. As the timetable for the Games had been published several months in advance, …

London-born Wyndham Halswelle was a competitor in one of the most amazing (and surreal!) Olympic events – the 400m final of the 1908 Olympics. In this event, Wyndham Halswelle won the gold medal in a race that had no other runners. The reason for the occurrence of this most strangest of races, was the total absence of uniform rules that then existed. For prior to the rules in the Olympics being standardised, many of the countries had different sets of …

We like this news report about the effect that the Olympics was having on the London Stock Exchange in 1948. The report also mentions Torbay/Torquay, which was was the location for the Olympic sailing events at the 1948 Games. It’ll be interesting to see if what effects the Olympics have on the London Stock Exchange in 2012…we hope there isn’t a high absenteeism rate in ‘the City’ when the Games are on… Western Morning News – Thursday 05 August 1948 …

Reading about the family of Ian Fleming in the Archive It’s just a small newspaper report, but there are so many stories within this wee clipping. The Leander crew who beat the New College (Oxford) crew to win the gold medal at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, contained one Philip Fleming. The nephew of Philip Fleming was a certain Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond stories. Unfortunately, the newspaper does not list the individual members of the victorious Leander …