George Hodgson

George Hodgson

Hodgson in 1912
Personal information
Full name George Ritchie Hodgson
National team  Canada
Born (1893-10-12)October 12, 1893
Montreal, Quebec
Died May 1, 1983(1983-05-01) (aged 89)
Montreal, Quebec
Sport
Sport Swimming
Strokes Freestyle
College team McGill University

George Ritchie Hodgson (October 12, 1893 May 1, 1983) was a Canadian competition swimmer of the early 20th century, and considered by many to be the greatest swimmer in Canadian history. Hodgson won the two longer freestyle swimming gold medals at the 1912 Olympics, the only categories in which he competed. He also competed at the 1920 Summer Olympics.[1]

Personal life

George Hodgson was born in 1893 in Montreal, Quebec. He matriculated at McGill University in 1912, competing in swimming and water polo for the school. While there, he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in applied science in 1916. He was inducted into the Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1968, into the McGill University Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, and died in Montreal in 1983.

International career

George Hodgson, Canada's only Olympic gold medal winner in swimming until 1984, did not stay in competition very long. He won two gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, with times of 5:24.4s in the 400-metre and 22:00.0s in the 1500-metre freestyle. He had already set a world record of 22:23.0 in the first round of the race. He was eighteen at the time and retired immediately after one of the great races of all time. His unprecedented success was widely attributed to his innovation of the trudgen stroke, a hybrid between the front crawl and sidestroke.

It was for the 1500 meter Olympic championship and Hodgson broke world and Olympic records for 1000 yards and meters, and 1 mile in addition to the prescribed 1500 meter race distance. His Olympic record at 400 meters stood until 1924 when Johnny Weissmuller broke it at Amsterdam. He was Canada's lone swimmer in 1912.

Records

Olympic records

Fastest freestyle mile in the 1911 Festival of Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games)

See also

References

  1. "George Hodgson Olympic Results". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 4 September 2016.


Records
Preceded by
Henry Taylor
Men's 1500-metre freestyle
world record-holder (long course)

July 10, 1912 July 8, 1923
Succeeded by
Arne Borg


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