Malcolm Champion

Olympic medal record
Competitor for  Australasia
Men’s swimming
Gold	1912 Stockholm	4x200 m freestyle relay

Malcolm Eadie Champion (12 November 1883 – 27 July 1939) was New Zealand's first Olympic gold medallist, and the first swimmer to represent New Zealand at an Olympic Games.^[1] He won a gold medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden as part of a combined team with Australia, competing as Australasia.

Champion was born in 1883 on Norfolk Island (now an Australian territory but then a British colony). His mother, Sarah Clara Quintal, descended from the Bounty mutineer Matthew Quintal. His father Captain Walter Champion was a sea captain who traded around the Pacific. The family moved to Auckland, New Zealand in 1897, by which time Malcolm, the eldest son, was serving on his father's ship.

Between 1901 and 1914, Champion won thirty-two New Zealand national titles, at one point holding the titles for every distance between 220 yards (200 m) and one mile (1.6 km).^[2] In 1911 was the long-distance champion of England and the 880 yd (800 m) champion of the Thames. He had also represented Australasia at the 1911 Festival of Empire at The Crystal Palace, an early forerunner to the Commonwealth Games, where he finished third in the mile race.

Due to the financial difficulties faced by the New Zealand Olympic Committee, his swimming club had to fundraise for him and organize loans so that he could travel to the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. At the Olympics, Champion carried the flag for the Australasian delegation. Champion was originally slated to compete in the 400 m and 1500 m freestyle events. He finished second in his 400 m heat behind Harold Hardwick and before finishing fourth in his semi-final to be eliminated. In the 1500 m event, he placed second in both his heat and semifinal, before abandoning in the final after 600 m.

A sudden ear infection to Bill Longworth resulted in Champion being promoted to the 4x200m freestyle relay team. In the final on 15 July, Champion swam the second leg, and started equal with the American swimmer after Cecil Healy's first leg before building up a 10 m lead in his leg. Les Boardman extended the lead to 15 m before Harold Hardwick held off Duke Kahanamoku to claim the gold medal in the world record time of 10:11.6. The final was the third time that a world record had been set in that event at the Stockholm games, the first two times occurring on 12 July with the United States team swimming 10:26.4, only to be bettered later that day by the Australasian team who swam 10:14.0 (the United States team won the silver medal in the final).^[3]

Champion was New Zealand's only Olympic gold medallist in swimming until 1996, when Danyon Loader won in the 200 m and 400 m freestyle events at the Atlanta Olympics.^[4] In 1990 Champion became an inaugural inductee into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. In 2005 the winning relay team was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, making Champion the only non-Australian inductee.^[5]

Like Billy Savidan after him, he was for some years Custodian at Auckland’s Tepid Baths, and the walls of his office was adorned with sketches of ships by him.

References

1. ^ "History". Swimming New Zealand. http://www.swimmingnz.org.nz/about-us/history. Retrieved 2006-07-17. 
2. ^ "Our Inductees - Malcolm Champion". NZ Hall of Fame. http://www.nzhalloffame.co.nz/inductee.asp?inducteeID=23&. Retrieved 2006-07-17. 
3. ^ "World Record Progression, Men, 4x200m Freestyle Relay" (PDF). The Official Website of the Olympic Movement. http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_222.pdf. Retrieved 2006-07-17. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ "Hall of Fame". Swimming New Zealand. http://www.swimmingnz.org.nz/about-us/hall-of-fame. Retrieved 2006-07-17. ^{[dead link]}
5. ^ "Men's 4 x 200 m Freestyle Relay Team - Swimming". Sport Australia Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 2006-08-19. http://web.archive.org/web/20060819212905/http://www.sahof.org.au/hall_of_fame/teamsdisplay.cfm?TeamID=26. Retrieved 2006-07-17. 

• Andrews, Malcolm (2000). Australia at the Olympic Games. Sydney, New South Wales: ABC Books. pp. 81–82. ISBN 0-7333-0884-8. 
• Howell, Max (1986). Aussie Gold. Albion, Queensland: Brooks Waterloo. pp. 31–32. ISBN 0-86440-680-0. 
• McMillan, Neville (1993, Moa Beckett, Auckland). New Zealand Sporting Legends: 27 Pre-War Sporting Heroes.  pages 21-26 ISBN 1-96958-013-1

External links

• Biography at New Zealand Olympic Committee website
• Sports-Reference

Persondata
Name	Champion, Malcolm
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1883-11-12
Place of birth
Date of death	1939-07-27
Place of death