Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Sydney Wooderson is my new hero. What did the poor bastard have to do to get some respect, you know? Held the world record for the mile for nearly five years (4:06.4, set in 1938), won the national X-C title in 1948 (running for the snappily named Blackheath Harriers). Jazzy nickname-- "The Mighty Atom". Bad eyesight kept him out of the army so he worked as a fireman during the Blitz. "But his last chance at Olympic glory ended in disappointment. Asked to carry the Olympic torch into Wembley Stadium to open the 1948 London Games, he was told upon arriving that the honor would go to someone else. According to the organizer of the torch relay, the organizing committee wanted “a handsome final runner to light the Olympic flame” and that “even the then-Queen remarked to me, ‘Of course we couldn’t have had poor little Sydney.’ ”
