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Scotland's first Olympic event

11/8/2012

1 Comment

 
Today marks the anniversary of Scotland's first Olympic event, the 12-metre yachting race held on 11 and 12 August 1908. Under Olympic rules only two vessels of the same nationality were allowed to compete, and with no foreign entrants, the two boats were selected after the Clyde Fortnight: Mouchette, owned by Charles MacIver and crewed by men from Merseyside, and Hera, owned by Thomas Glen-Coats, crewed by men from the Clyde.  Each boat had an amateur crew of ten, and the owner steered over a 26 mile course from Hunter’s Quay to Inverkip, Dunoon and Kilcreggan, twice round. Hera won on both days to take the gold medal. 
   Thomas Glen-Coats (born 5 May 1878 Paisley, died 7 March 1954 Glasgow) was the eldest of four sons of Sir Thomas Glen-Coats, Bt. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he succeeded to the Baronetcy on the death of his father in 1922 and played no part in the hugely prosperous family business, J&P Coats Ltd, the spinning merchants. In 1935, Sir Thomas married Louise Hugon (formerly Mrs JC Newman) of Paris but as there were no children, the Baronetcy died with him.
   Until the recent football matches at Hampden (where I was venue media manager), this was the only Olympic contest ever staged in Scotland. 
1 Comment
Matt Vallance
17/7/2013 12:54:36 am

Andy - Interesting story. I covered this one while at the Paisley Daily Express, I think in 2000, to coincide with that year's Olympic Games.

According to the PDE archives, Glen-Coats was on his honeymoon and the Olympic Games race was just one phase of the honeymoon, spent cruising the West Coast with a bit of deer stalking and grouse shooting thrown-in.

The Hera, which was apparently designed by either its owner or another member of the Glen-Coats family (the archive is a bit imprecise), was later taken to Ireland. There is a specialist firm of sailing photographers based in Cowes who offered the paper a picture of it, but, at £35, the editor thought it outwith our budget.

Sorry I cannot be more specific - when I left the PDE I wasn't allowed to take my cuttings with me and, when the paper moved, they were seemingly dumped.

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    All blog posts, unless stated, are written by Andy Mitchell, who is researching Scottish sport on a regular basis.