Sydney Wooderson

{{Infobox sportsperson

|name= Sydney Wooderson
{{nobold|{{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|MBE}}}}

|image=Churchman cigarette card of Sydney Wooderson.jpg

| image_size =

|caption=

|birth_date= 30 August 1914

|birth_place= Camberwell, Greater London, Great Britain

| death_date = 21 December 2006 (aged 92)

| death_place = Wareham, Dorset, England

| height = {{convert|1.68|m|ftin|abbr=on}}

| weight = {{convert|56|kg|lb|abbr=on}}

|sport=Athletics

|event= 400–5000 m

|club=Blackheath Harriers

|pb= 440 yd – 49.3 (1938)
800 m – 1:48.4 (1938)
1500 m – 3:48.4 (1945)
Mile – 4:04.2 (1945)
5000 m – 14:08.6 (1946)

|alma_mater=

| show-medals = yes

| medaltemplates =

{{MedalCountry|{{ENG}}}}

{{MedalCountry|{{GBR2}}}}

}}

Sydney Charles Wooderson MBE (30 August 1914 – 21 December 2006), dubbed "The Mighty Atom", was an English athlete whose peak career was in the 1930s and 1940s.

He set the world mile record of 4:06.4 at London’s Motspur Park on 28 August 1937. This record stood for nearly five years.

Biography

Born in Camberwell, London, he was 5 ft 6 in and weighed less than 9 stone (126 lbs). He attended Sutton Valence School, Kent. At 18 he became the first British schoolboy to break 4min 30sec for the mile. He won the British mile title for the five years up to the outbreak of the war in 1939. In 1934 he won the silver medal in the one mile event at the British Empire Games.

At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, he suffered an ankle injury and failed to qualify for the 1500 metres final. However, in 1937, after surgery, his performance increased and culminated in his world mile record of 4:06.4 in 1937. In 1938 he set world records in the 800 m and 880 yards with times of 1:48.4 and 1:49.2, respectively.

Wooderson won five consecutive 1 mile titles at the prestigious AAA Championships,{{cite web|url=https://nuts.org.uk/Champs/AAA/AAA1500.htm |title=AAA, WAAA and National Championships Medallists |website=National Union of Track Statisticians |access-date=14 July 2024}} winning the title in 1935,{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000681/19350713/349/0018 |title=AAA titles |work=Daily Herald |date=13 July 1935 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=16 January 2025 }}{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000681/19350715/314/0017 |title=Why Lovelock lost his title |work=Daily Herald |date=15 July 1935 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=16 January 2025 }} 1936,{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000104/19360711/173/0006 |title=AAA Championships begin |work=Western Mail |date=11 July 1936 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=18 January 2025 }}{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003214/19360713/473/0017 |title=Wooderson wins again |work=Daily Herald |date=13 July 1936 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=18 January 2025 }} 1937,{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000650/19370717/014/0014 |title=The Athletic Championships |work=Liverpool Daily Post |date=17 July 1937 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=18 January 2025 }} 1938{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000104/19380716/152/0005 |title=Italian wins six-mile title |work=Western Mail |date=16 July 1938 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=19 January 2025 }} and 1939.

Off the track Wooderson was a City of London solicitor and missed the 1938 Empire Games in Sydney because he was taking his law finals.

His poor eyesight ruled him out of active service during the Second World War. He joined the Royal Pioneer Corps and was a firefighter during the Blitz and then later, in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers as a radar operator. In 1944, he spent several months in hospital suffering from rheumatic fever and was warned by doctors he might never run again.

Immediately after the war, however, in 1945, he ran his fastest mile, 4:04.2, just behind Arne Andersson of Sweden. Wooderson became the British 3 mile champion at the 1946 AAA Championships{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000681/19460720/064/0004 |title=Swede first to win AAA title |work=Daily Herald |date=20 July 1946 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=7 April 2025}}{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003214/19460722/122/0004 |title=AAA results |work=Daily News (London) |date=22 July 1946 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=7 April 2025}} and shortly afterwards in Oslo at the 1946 European Athletics Championships, he won the 5,000 m in 14:08.6, the second-fastest time to that point. His versatility was demonstrated when he won the English National Cross Country Championships title in 1948.

He was the natural choice to carry the Olympic torch into Wembley Stadium for the 1948 Summer Olympics. However he was turned away at the last minute because members of the organising committee wanted a more handsome final runner. They chose the relatively unknown John Mark instead.[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2516259_2,00.html The Times Obituary 22 December 2006]{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} "Though the modest little hero insisted he did not feel snubbed, the late Commander Bill Collins, who organised the 1948 Olympic torch relay, is on record that "such was the then organising committee’s obsession with a handsome final runner to light the Olympic flame that even the then Queen remarked to me ‘Of course we couldn’t have had poor little Sydney . . . "

He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours for services to Blackheath Harriers and athletics.United Kingdom: {{London Gazette |issue=55879 |date=19 June 2000 |pages=24 |supp=1 }}

Wooderson lived in retirement in Dorset in the South of England. He remained a life member of Blackheath Harriers and was twice its president. He died on Thursday 21 December 2006 in a nursing home at Wareham, Dorset. His ashes are interred in the churchyard of Lady St. Mary's Church, Wareham.

In 2018 a biography of Wooderson was published – Sydney Wooderson: A Very British Hero by Rob Hadgraft. The Wooderson title was highly acclaimed in the sporting press.{{citation needed|reason=highly acclaimed |date=January 2025}}

References

{{reflist|refs=

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200418003315/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/wo/sydney-wooderson-1.html Sydney Wooderson]. sports-reference.com

[http://trackfield.brinkster.net/Profile.asp?ID=7311&Gender=M Sydney Wooderson]. trackfield.brinkster.net

}}

External links

{{sports links}}

{{Succession box|before={{Flag icon|USA}} Elroy Robinson|title=Men's 800 metres World Record Holder|years=20 August 1938 – 15 June 1939|after={{Flag icon|GER|Nazi}} Rudolf Harbig}}

{{Succession box|before={{Flag icon|USA}} Glenn Cunningham|title=Men's Mile World Record Holder|years=28 August 1937 – 1 July 1942|after={{Flag icon|SWE}} Gunder Hägg}}

{{Succession box|before={{Flag icon|GBR}} Tommy Hampson|title=European Record Holder Men's 800m|years=20 August 1938 – 14 July 1939|after={{Flag icon|GER}} Rudolf Harbig}}

Category:1914 births

Category:2006 deaths

Category:English male middle-distance runners

Category:British male middle-distance runners

Category:Olympic athletes for Great Britain

Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1934 British Empire Games

Category:Commonwealth Games silver medallists for England

Category:World record setters in athletics (track and field)

Category:Deaths from kidney failure in the United Kingdom

Category:People from Camberwell

Category:Athletes from the London Borough of Southwark