Harold Abrahams, the most celebrated of all Anglo-Jewish athletes, has been inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame.
The 1924 Olympic 100 metres champion received a posthumous honour at an awards ceremony in Birmingham. Athletics writer and selection panel member Mel Watman spoke of Abrahams’ “massive and varied services to British and international athletics”.
Apart from becoming the first European to win the Olympic 100m gold medal and holding the English long jump record for 32 years, Abrahams also served the sport with distinction as a journalist, BBC radio commentator and high ranking administrator and official.
He died aged 78 in 1978, three years before the release of the Oscar-winning film “Chariots of Fire”, in which his was one of the two main characters portrayed.
Watman, who referred to Abrahams as “a father figure during my fledgling days as an athletics writer”, presented the award to Abrahams’ daughter, Sue Pottle.
Abrahams is the only Jewish-born inductee into the Hall of Fame, which includes such names as Roger Bannister, Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Daley Thompson, Mary Rand and Sally Gunnell.
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