Former Olympic silver medallist Syd Battersby will be inducted posthumously into the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) this weekend in Florida while British journalist Craig Lord will receive the Al Schoenfield Award.
Born in 1887, Battersby swam at a time when other Swimming Hall of Fame members Henry Taylor, John Jarvis and Frank Beaurepaire were dominating world competition.
Sandwiched between Taylor and Beaurepaire, Battersby won the 1500m Freestyle silver medal in 1908. He set three world records in freestyle and won five ASA National Championships. In 1912 he won an Olympic bronze relay medal.
Battersby was nominated in 2000 by US swimming Coach Peter Daland, an ISHOF Selection Committee Member, and will be formerly inducted on 12th May at the annual induction ceremony in Fort Lauderdale.
Battersby began his career with Wigan SC and first came to prominence at the national championships in 1906 when he finished third in the 500yd and 880yd Freestyle events establishing himself as a middle-to-long distance specialist.
At the 1908 Olympics he competed in the 400m and 1500m Freestyle. In the 400m Battersby didn't make the final but broke the Olympic record in the heats with a 5:48.8. In the 1500m he led for the majority of the race only being passed by Taylor in the final 200m but he finished with Olympic silver.
In qualifying for the final Battersby had set an Olympic Record of 23:42.8 and at the end of the 1500m he continued swimming and established a new record for the mile.
Battersby’s best performances came in the years between Olympiads. His first world record, late in 1908, was for the 440yd Freestyle in 5:26.4 and he followed it up in 1909 with four ASA titles - 220yd, 440yd, 880yd and the mile, also setting a world record for the 300yd with a 3:31.4.
He won one further ASA title - the Long Distance in 1910 - and in a 400m race in London on 21st September 1911 Battersby erased Henry Taylor's 1908 World Record from the record books.
By the time of the 1912 Games in Stockholm Battersby had moved to Amateur SC, London. In the 4 x 200m relay he won a bronze medal.
London-based journalist Craig Lord will receive the Al Schoenfield Award after covering every Olympic Games, World Championship and European Championship as a Swimming Correspondent for The Times and Sunday Times since 1989.
A Swimming Times correspondent also, Lord is well known and respected for campaigning for fairness, speaking out against cheating and supporting the rights of swimmers and coaches to be active stakeholders in determining the direction of their sport.
Throughout the 1990s, Lord was at the forefront of reporting the illegal drug scandals that dogged the swimming world. In 1998, Lord broke the news that Michelle Smith de Bruin, the Irish triple Olympic champion of 1996, faced suspension for manipulating a drug-test sample. Smith de Bruin was subsequently suspended and retired while serving her ban.
While serving as swimming correspondent for The Times, Lord also worked in the business, home news and features departments of the newspaper. As Deputy Editor of Times Online in 2000, he researched and compiled the organisation’s Olympic archives.
Lord has been a European correspondent for Swimming World in the United States and Swim News in Canada. He also provides a daily digest of news and commentary for SwimNews.com, writing for Swim News publisher Nick Thierry, also a recipient of this award and an ISHOF Hall of Famer.
Past recipients of this award, include Sports broadcaster New York Times journalist Frank Litsky, Jim McKay, Olympic documentarian Bud Greenspan and south Florida journalist Sharon Robb.
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For further details contact Dave Richards, British Swimming Media Manager, on 01509 632237, 0778 992 6136 or email dave.richards@swimming.org
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