Cecil Healy

Cecil Healy
Personal information
Surname:	Cecil Patrick Healy
Nation:	Australia Australasia
Swimming style (s) :	Freestyle swimming
Society:	East Sydney ASC
College team:	St. Aloysius College
Birthday:	November 28, 1881
Place of birth:	Sydney , Australia
Date of death:	August 29, 1918
Place of death:	Assevillers , France
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 1 × 0 × Olympic Intermediate Games 0 × 0 × 1 ×

Cecil Patrick Healy (born November 28, 1881 in Sydney , † August 29, 1918 in Assevillers , France ) was an Australian swimmer .

Childhood and youth

Cecil Healy was born the son of a lawyer in Darlinghurst , a suburb of Sydney . As a child, he and his family moved to the small town of Bowral , south of Sydney, where he went to elementary school. In 1896 he moved back to Sydney and joined the East Sydney Swimming Club , which Frederick Lane also belonged to. Healy was also a member of the North Steyne Surf Lifesaving Club . Healy attended St. Aloysius College in Sydney.

Swimming career

In 1904, Healy swam the 100-meter freestyle in 58 seconds, the fastest time ever. However, there were no official world records at that time. At the Australasian Championships in 1905 he swam again in the 100-meter freestyle in 58 seconds and set a new world record with his first championship title.

1906 Healy was chosen as one of four Australian athletes for the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens nominated. At the games in Athens Healy was in the 100-meter freestyle, he won the bronze medal behind the American Charles Daniels and the Hungarian Zoltán von Halmay .

After the Games, Healy traveled around Europe and made the crawl swimming more famous. He competed in Hamburg, Belgium and the Netherlands and won the 220-yard freestyle race at the British Championships.

Healy returned to Australia and became the Australian 100 meter freestyle champion, but could not take part in the 1908 Summer Olympics due to lack of funds . In 1909 and 1910 he defended his Australian championship title.

In 1912 Healy finished third in the 110, 220 and 880 meter freestyle at the Australasian Championships, qualifying for the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm . For these games, Australia and New Zealand provided a joint delegation called Australasia .

About 100-meter freestyle , he won the silver medal. Four days later he missed a medal in fourth place in the 400 meter freestyle race . After he had already set a new world record in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay race together with Harold Hardwick , Leslie Boardman and Malcolm Champion , the relay set it again in the final and became Olympic champion.

After the Games, he traveled through Europe again, where he undercut Beaurepaires 220-meter world record in Scotland by more than three seconds. He then retired and returned to his home country and worked as a lifeguard on Manly Beach .

Military Service and Later Life

In September 1915 Healy began his military career with the Australian Defense Force , for which he served as a sergeant major in Egypt and France . During the First World War, he died on the Somme Front in Assevillers in 1918 .

In 1981 Healy was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame .

Web links

• Cecil Healy in the database of sports-reference.com ( Memento from April 17, 2020 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Devitt John: Cecily Healy: a biography . Ed .: Online Computer Library Center. New South Wales 2018, ISBN 978-0-9945008-6-1 .
2. ↑ 100 Years Ago In Stockholm: The Olympics ( Memento from July 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive )