The Forgotten Gold Medalist

In a small town in the north of France, stands a statue - a monument honouring a fallen hero. A plaque carries the name of a soldier, but this isn't a regular war memorial. It recognises a once forgotten Australian champion athlete who embodied sportsmanship and made history. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
In a small town in the north of France stands
a statue. It's a memorial honoring a fallen hero. It
depicts a soldier in uniform holding a wreath, his head
angled slightly upward and a look of pride on his face.
A plaque bears the name Cecil Heey, an Australian. What's

(00:29):
a monument to an ossie doing in the French countryside. Well,
it's a story that goes back more than one hundred years.
It starts in the suburbs of Sydney and ends on
a battlefield at the height of World War One. Cecil
Heey wasn't just a soldier. He was a champion athlete
who embodied sportsmanship and made Olympic history. Tony Armstrong and

(01:01):
welcome to the pool room. This is where we celebrate
the winners, losers and the weird stuff between. If you

(01:27):
haven't heard of Cecil Healy until now, that's okay. He
was breaking records before there was even official record keeping.
Cecil's story begins in Sydney. As a teenager, he was
a member of the East Sydney Swimming Club. Cecil loved

(01:47):
the water and was always a strong swimmer. By his
early twenties, he joined his local surf Life Saving club,
where he put his talent to good use, entering competitions
and saving lives on the beach. In nineteen oh four,
Cecil set an unofficial record of fifty eight seconds in
the one hundred yards freestyle. The following year, he posted

(02:10):
the same time in the one hundred and ten yards freestyle.
This time it was the Australasian Championships, marking Cecil's first
official swimming title. He adopted the front crawl stroke, which
was a new style of swimming at the time. While
traditionalists looked down on the stroke, Cecil embraced it and

(02:30):
continued to dominate the national championships he won in nineteen
oh six, nineteen oh eight and nineteen ten. Having missed
out on the nineteen oh eight Olympics because he couldn't
afford to travel, Cecil was stoked to qualify for the
nineteen twelve Games in Stockholm. He was part of the

(02:51):
joint Australia and New Zealand team, which comprised of just
twenty six athletes across four events athletics, rowing, tennis and swimming.
First up was Cecil's specialty, the one hundred meter freestyle.
He was placed into heap four along with two Americans,
a Swede, and a German. Only the top two in

(03:13):
each heat would advance through to the next round. Cecil
finished second with a time of one minute and five
point two seconds, meaning he qualified for the quarter finals.
His three fellow countrymen finished first or second in their
respective heats. In the quarters, Cecil just managed to progress,

(03:41):
placing third behind two Americans by milliseconds. Then, in the
semifinals came one of the most controversial moments of the
Games that ultimately turned into one of the most inspirational.
Cecil lined up for the first semifinal alongside a German

(04:01):
and his assie teammate William Longworth. This time it was
Cecil who placed first one minute and five point six seconds.
He was through to the final for a shot at
the gold medal. In the next semifinal, three Americans were
set to face off, but there was just one problem.

(04:22):
They were running late, including their star athlete Duke Kahanamoku,
who was the clear favorite to win gold. He was
also the guy who popularized surfing. True story. Anyway, it
turned out the Americans had confused the start time of
the race for a session later in the day, they

(04:43):
were disqualified for failing to turn up, and the second
semifinal went ahead without them, leaving one German to swim alone.
It was good news for Cecil Healy, Duke Kahanamoku, his
biggest competitor, was now out of the running. He had
a clear shot at the gold but Cecil didn't see

(05:05):
it that way. Instead, he came forward in support of
the Americans. Cecil pleaded for them to be given another chance.
It was unprecedented. I mean, if your opponent makes a mistake,
that's on them. You accept the good fortune and seize
the opportunity. Right. Well, not Cecil. He thought the Americans

(05:30):
deserved to be in the final. He felt it'd be
unsportsmanlike to prevent them from competing because of a simple,
honest mistake that anyone could have made. Cecil was so
insistent that the matter was referred to Olympic officials, and
rather than dismissed the case outright, they actually listened, much
to the disappointment of the German team. Remarkably, the officials

(05:56):
ordered for a special third semi final to be held,
giving the Americans as second chance. The top two finishes
would join Cecil, the two Germans and William Longworth in
the final round. Unsurprisingly, it was Duke Kahanamoku who finished first,
all thanks to Cecil Heeley's selfless act. Now, if you're

(06:18):
hoping Kahanamoku returned the favor in the final think again.
Kahanamoku outpaced his competitors to snatch the gold medal by
one point two seconds. Cecil came second. Cecil Heeley showed
that some things are more important than winning, symbolizing the

(06:38):
Olympic spirit, and he still managed to take home a
gold medal. From Stockholm, Cecil and the Australasian team won
the men's four by two hundred meter freestyle relay, beating
the United States and setting a new world record in
the process. Cecil Heeley continued to swim, entering the toughest

(07:04):
competitions around the world, but five years later he was
back in Europe for very different reasons. In nineteen fifteen,
Cecil enlisted for the army and became an officer, initially
serving in Egypt before being deployed to France. He fought
on the battlefield of the River Somme, and that's also
where he died. On the twenty ninth of August nineteen eighteen,

(07:32):
Cecil was killed in action, the only Australian gold medalists
to have died in war. He was just thirty six
years old. Cecil Heeley was honored in the International Swimming
Hall of Fame and the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

(07:53):
Australia's Olympic Committee even created an award in his name,
the Cecil Heeley Award for outstairs Ending Sportsmanship, and on
the one hundredth anniversary of his death, a statue of
his likeness was unveiled in the French countryside in the
same village where Cecil was laid to rest. The townspeople

(08:15):
adopted this as a hero as one of their own,
a swimming champion and a damn good sport. Thanks for
listening to the pool room and iHeart production. Join me
next time for another great sports yarn. I'm Tony Armstrong.

(08:37):
Have a good one.