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Portrait of Harold Abrahams

Unknown (IOC Olympic Museum, Switzerland) · Public domain

Harold Abrahams

British sprinter

1899 – 1978aged 78

An English sprinter who won Olympic gold in the 100 metres at the 1924 Paris Games, a victory that became the centerpiece of the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. His race, run against competitors and prejudice both, made him one of the defining British athletes of the interwar Olympics and gave the story of Jewish achievement against exclusion a permanent place in popular memory.

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