Vancouver Sun

Williams stood tall as the world’s fastest man

To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, we are counting down to Canada Day with profiles of 150 noteworthy British Columbians.

- JOHN MACKIE jmackie@postmedia.com

Today, the world’s top sprinter is Usain Bolt of Jamaica, who stands six-foot-five and weighs 207 pounds. He looks like Superman when he’s ripping down a track.

In 1928, the world’s top sprinter was a five-foot-seven, 126-pound kid from East Vancouver, Percy Williams.

On July 30, 1928, the slender sprinter shocked the world when he won the 100-metre dash at the Olympics in Amsterdam. Two days later, the 20-year-old won the 200 metres.

It was arguably the biggest sports story in Vancouver history. The Vancouver Sun and Province ran banner front-page headlines for four days straight about “the Canadian schoolboy from British Columbia” who “sprang from obscurity to fame.”

This wasn’t hype. Williams’ victory in the 100 metres was so unexpected that the band assigned to play the national anthem for the winning sprinter had to scramble around to find the sheet music for Canada. The band wound up doing a ragged version of The Maple Leaf Forever rather than O Canada, because they didn’t know the name of the actual anthem.

Williams had baffled the running world in Canada, too. In the words of a former schoolmate, he could always “run like hell.”

But he suffered from rheumatism in his teens, and he gave up track for two years.

He returned to track in 1926 and won the local high school championsh­ip for 100 and 220 yards. He repeated the victories in 1927, but finished second in the national championsh­ip in Toronto and didn’t make the Olympic team.

A year later, he tied the world record for the 100 metres at the B.C. Olympic trials. He did it again at the 1928 national championsh­ips in Hamilton, which earned him a trip to the Olympics.

But funds were scarce — the Olympics were genuinely amateur in the 1920s. Locals had to raise money to send Williams back east for the national championsh­ips in 1927 and ’28. His coach, Bob Granger, made his way back east by working on the train.

Williams came back home a national hero, feted by enormous crowds across the country. An estimated 25,000 people turned out to greet him at the Canadian Pacific Railway station at the foot of Granville Street. Many were schoolchil­dren, who had been given the day off to celebrate Percy’s return to Vancouver.

Sadly, he developed bad arthritis later in life, and committed suicide in 1982 at the age of 74.

 ?? VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY ?? Percy Williams was a virtual unknown before he shot to internatio­nal fame as a sprinter in the 1920s
VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY Percy Williams was a virtual unknown before he shot to internatio­nal fame as a sprinter in the 1920s

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