The Olympic Games A Macnab Gold Medal

                              

All we saw on TV and read in our newspapers during the 2008 Beijing
Olympics brought the drama and spectacle to us as it happened. All have
shared the euphoria and pride in the successes of "Team Great Britain".

It is interesting how the Olympic Games are today compared with an earlier era, when the modern media coverage we have today did not exist. In those days fewer nations took part and the Games were more truly amateur.

In 1924 James Alexander Macnabb, together with Charles Maxwell Eley, RE
Morrison and Terence Sanders were members of the Third Trinity Cambridge Coxless four crew, which won a Gold Medal for Great Britain at the Paris Olympics (as did Beresford in the Single Sculls).

In 1924 there were no public medal presentations as there are now. Their
gold medals simply arrived in the post after they got home! There was also no loop attached to the medal to allow it to be hung around the neck as is the custom today. James Macnabb's grandson (a leading restorer of old clocks) had to fashion one for his grandfather when, as the only survivor of the four, he and all other living British Gold Medallists were presented to HRH Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh at a reception in Brown's Hotel, London. He was then in his mid eighties and the oldest surviving male British Gold Medallist (the oldest at the time being a lady who had won hers for tennis in an earlier games)

The following account of what took place in 1924 was written by James Macnabb at the age 87 the year before he died in 1988:-

"We travelled over to France with other British Representatives as
recorded in the famous film 'Chariots of Fire'. Once in Paris we
oarsmen parted company with the rest of the British Competitors,
whom we never saw again! Nor did we ever see the Olympic Village or
the stadium. Instead we were housed in a very noisy hotel over the
Gare St Lazare in the centre of Paris from which we had to travel to the
course on the Seine.

But the big question at this time was the whereabouts of our boat and
oars. They had not arrived at the course nor had they been heard of.
We made the journey each day to the Seine where we could do
nothing but hang about. However, after two or three days an
enormous packing case on a cart drawn by a team of donkeys
appeared and we were able to try and make up the lost practice time.
When we had our first outing we realised immediately how heavy the
water of the Seine was at that time, but Laurie Beedel (the British sole
boatman) came to our aid and shaved down our blades a fraction, to
our great advantage. After that, and a couple of days practice, we felt
ready to race the Canadians who were absolutely confident they would
beat us.

In the fours heat, we were drawn against one other crew, France. Just
before the race started the umpire announced from his launch 'whoever
wins, you will both be in the final'. In spite of the newspaper reports, the French were about three feet up by the time we were under way, so we spent the day practising start and learnt to move off when the starter called 'Par...' without waiting for the '...ti'!!"

The following account of the regatta is from an English newspaper
dated July 17 1924.

"The fours came next, the crews in the final heat being France,
Great Britain (Eley, Macnabb, Morrison and Sanders)
Switzerland and Canada in that order. I have said that the
Canadians are a powerful lot, who rowed a strong race in their
heat, which they did in 12 sec better time than Third Trinity had
found it necessary to do in theirs. The race was assumed to be
between these two, and so it proved. Third Trinity secured a
lead in the first dozen lengths and were never headed. The
water was distinctly rough and there was an uncomfortable
moment about three-quarters through the race when even the
faultless Cambridge four took to splashing and it looked like
anybody's race. It was only for three or four strokes, however,
and in the last few hundred yards they drew steadily away and
won by about a length and a quarter from the Canadians in 7
min 8 1/5 sec. The speed and smoothness with which they
were travelling at the finish was delightful to watch. The
Canadians have never before been beaten, in Canada or in the
US, and they and their partisans were full of confidence."

Lieutenant Colonel James Alexander Macnabb OBE TD was recognised as
de jure 21st Chief of Clan Macnab and is father of the present chief.

After his death his Gold Medal was presented by the family to the Leander
Club at Henley, where it is now on display.

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