Olympic honour taken to Paris 2024 for swimmer who competed at Paris 1924 games
A remarkable family connection to the Paris Olympics of 1924 will be honoured when a Moray woman makes a sporting pilgrimage to the French capital for this years games.
The 2024 Olympiad will see 10,500 athletes from 203 countries taking part in 329 events across 32 sports for the next month.
The great niece of a Scottish swimmer who competed a century ago, Frances Wardhaugh, plans to visit the swimming pool where her Great Uncle, Charlie Baillie, represented Team GB all those years ago.
As people look forward to the opening ceremony tonight, we spoke to Frances to find out a bit more about Charlie, a Scottish champion at 50 and 100 yards freestyle.
His talent earned him a call up to the GB team in the 100 yards freestyle at the 1924 games, at the age of 21, and he went on to finish fourth in his heat.
The title was won by Johnny Weissmuller, who went on to become a five-time Olympic gold medallist and achieve fame as an actor, most notably in the role of Tarzan.
Frances will be one of millions glued to the television tonight to watch the colourful ceremony in the Stade de France.
The 1924 Olympics were also made famous in 1987 with the release of the Chariots of Fire film, which was based on the lives and gold-medal-winning performances of sprinters Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams ahead of the games.
Retired head teacher and keen runner Frances is looking forward to recalling memories of her Uncle Charlie when she flies out to Paris on August 6 to take in some of the action at Paris 2024.
“I was always intending to go to the Olympics but I thought it was a nice little coincidence that 100 years ago in the same city he was swimming,” she said.
“It is such a fabulous story. Uncle Charlie and his wife Ella lived just down the road from us when I was in Edinburgh.
“The pool he swam in is still in use so I hope to visit it when I am over. That would be really nice and a lovely tribute to the family.”
The 1924 Olympics saw the event take a major step forward with the number of competing nations increasing from 29 to 44, and more than 1,000 journalists in attendance.
Charlie never talked much about his time at the Olympics and Frances’ abiding memory of her uncle, growing up as a young girl in Edinburgh, was the “great ginger beer” he made.
“Charlie played water polo for Scotland as well and I am going to see some water polo when I am in Paris,” she added.
Charlie, the son of an Edinburgh baths attendant, started swimming at an early age and from 1921-27 he won the Scottish 50 and 100 yard swimming titles every year.
He originally swam for the Edinburgh Grove Club before joining the Oldham police force in 1926 when he became a member of their swimming club. Although 1924 was his only Olympics, he had come close to selection four years earlier when, as a 17-year-old, he came second in his heat in the Olympic trial at Southport.
In 1935 he played for Lancashire in the final of the English County Water Polo Championship, but they were beaten 5-0 by Essex. The following year, he played for Oldham Police in their first ever appearance in the final of the English Club Water Polo Championship, but lost 4-0 to holders Plaistow United.
He was still swimming and playing water polo in his 40s.
Frances acquired her uncle’s passion for sport at a young age and is herself a keen swimmer and runner – she has been a member of Moray Roadrunners since 1990 and is still a regular competitor and volunteer at Elgin parkrun every Saturday morning, and loves watching athletics and football.
She will be in the Stade de France on the Thursday after she flies out to watch the athletics programme and also has the men’s and women’s marathons on her to-watch list during her six days in Paris.
Frances was in London for the 2012 Olympics and although not at the stadium on “Super Saturday”, she recalls the “phenomenal atmosphere” in the city that day and 24 hours later when Sir Andy Murray, just Andy as he was then, won gold at the tennis competition at Wimbledon.
She will be accompanied to the events in Paris by her partner Mary’s daughter Angie, who works in the city for the European Civil Aviation Conference.
Frances, who has lived in Moray for 42 years, 30 of them working as a teacher and latterly head teacher at Mosstowie Primary School before she retired, will be glued to her TV for the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, July 26.
