Competition: design a sports medal for your chance to win a £100 goody bag!
Learn all about the British men and women who triumphed at the last Paris Olympics, 100 years ago, and are commemorated by blue plaques in London. Then use our template to come up with your very own stylish sports medal and enter our competition to win £100 of English Heritage prizes!
We are the champions
This year, the Olympics are taking place in Paris. The games last took place there 100 years ago. On this page, we've gathered some of the British sportspeople who won medals at the 1924 games, and whose sporting achievements have been recognised by blue plaques that you can see around London!
Harry Mallin
(1892–1969)
Harry Mallin was a London policeman and a middleweight amateur boxer. He won the gold medal at the 1920 Olympic games and did the same again in Paris four years later in 1924 – even though one of his opponents bit him!
Afterwards he retired from boxing, undefeated in more than 350 fights. Harry’s blue plaque is at 105 Regency Street, Pimlico, on the police barracks where he lived back in 1924.
Kitty Godfree
(1896–1992)
Kathleen (or Kitty) Godfree was a tennis champion who won the ladies’ singles title at Wimbledon in 1924. At the Olympics that year she took the silver in the ladies’ doubles and bronze in the singles. In total, she won five Olympic medals – this was a record for tennis until 2016 – and played tennis until she was 90 years old!
Kitty’s blue plaque is at 55 York Avenue, on the home she shared with her husband Leslie, who was also a top-level tennis player.
Harold Abrahams
(1899–1978)
Harold was a runner who won gold in the 100 metres at the 1924 Olympics, and his time equalled the world record. Sadly, his athletics career ended the following year, when he broke his leg while trying to beat his British long-jump record. His story was told in the film Chariots of Fire.
Harold was born to a Polish–Jewish father and grew up in Bedford. His plaque is at 2 Hodford Road, Golders Green, where he was living at the time of his amazing Olympic run.
Jack Beresford
(1899–1977)
Jack Beresford was a rowing champion who won his first Olympic gold medal (in the single sculls) at the 1924 games. He won medals at five consecutive Olympic games, three of them gold – this was a record for a rower until the year 2000.
Like Abrahams, Beresford’s family originally came from Poland. His blue plaque is at 19 Grove Park Gardens, Chiswick – not far away from the River Thames, on which he trained and raced.
Design your medal
Now you’ve read all about the British Olympic heroes of 100 years ago, we’d like you to design your own snazzy sports medal.
Click the button below to download a template and print it out. Then it's up to you: colour it in using coloured pencils, felt-tip pens or crayons, paint it, or you could even create a collage. Your design could be inspired by your favourite sportsperson, the Olympic Games or just be a cool pattern.
Once you’ve finished your design, follow these instructions to make it into a medal:
1. Glue it to a sheet of card
2. After the glue has dried, cut out the medal
3. Make a hole at the top (you might want to ask an adult to help you with this or you could use a holepunch)
4. Thread some ribbon through the hole and tie the ends together to finish your medal.
You can now declare yourself the champion!
download your templateHow to enter
Once you’ve made your medal, you can enter it into our competition to be in with a chance of winning a goody bag of prizes worth £100 from our online shop!
Ask an adult to scan or take a clear photograph of your medal and send it to us at membersmagazine@ourmedia.co.uk, along with your full name and age, and your parent or guardian’s membership number, name and address.
Please make sure you have your parent or guardian’s permission to enter, and check the terms and conditions below. Entries must be in by midnight on Monday 2 September 2024. Good luck!
Enter now!
