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Wyndham Halswelle (30 May 1882 – 31 March 1915) was a British athlete.He won the

controversial 400m race at the 1908 Summer Olympics, becoming the only athlete to win an

Olympic title by a walkover.Halswelle was also an infantry officer who served in the Second

Boer War and World War I.He was killed by a sniper at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in

1915.== Early life ==

Born in London to London-born, Edinburgh-trained artist Keeley Halswelle and Helen

Marianna Elizabeth Gordon, he is nonetheless usually referred to as being Scottish, the

nationality of his maternal grandfather, General Nathaniel J. Gordon.Wyndham Halswelle

had a notable athletic career at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military College,

Sandhurst, before being commissioned into the Highland Light Infantry as a second

lieutenant on 8 January 1901.Serving in South Africa in 1902 for the Second Boer War,

Halswelle's ability was recognised by Jimmy Curran, a coach and amateur athlete.Halswelle

returned to his regiment in January 1903, and was with the 1st battalion as they left South

Africa for Egypt the same month.It was Curran who persuaded Halswelle to take up

athletics seriously when his regiment returned to Edinburgh in 1904.== Domestic athletics

==

In 1904 he was army champion for 880 yards, and in 1905 he won the Scottish and AAA 440

yard (402 m) titles.In the 1906 Athens Intercalated Olympics, he achieved a silver medal in

the 400 metres and a bronze in the 800 metres.On his return, in a single afternoon in 1906

at the Scottish championships in Powderhall, he won the 100, 220, 440 and 880 yards races
(91, 201, 402, 805 m), a feat that has not been matched since.His season was cut short by a

leg injury in 1907, but he came back the following year to set a world record of 31.2 s for

300 yards (274 m) and a British record over 440 yards of 48.4 s that lasted over a quarter of

a century until it was eventually broken by Godfrey Rampling.In 1908 he set a Scottish 300

yards record that lasted until 1961 when it was beaten by Menzies Campbell, then a

Glasgow University student.== 1908 Summer Olympics ==

In 1908 Summer Olympics, Halswelle reached the final of the 400 m with the fastest

qualifying time (an Olympic record of 48.4 s).The 400 m was not run in lanes at this

point.Halswelle was baulked by William Robbins in the first 50 m. Then, coming off the final

bend, Robbins led John Carpenter by a yard, with Halswelle waiting to pass him in the last

straight, as he had done to other athletes in the earlier rounds.Carpenter ran wide, forcing

Halswelle to within eighteen inches of the outside of the track, using his right elbow to

prevent Halswelle overtaking.British umpire Roscoe Badger observed that Carpenter

manoeuvred so as to prevent Halswelle from passing him.While blocking competitors was

an acceptable strategy in the United States, it was prohibited by the British rules under

which the 1908 London Olympics were organised.Badger immediately signalled the judges

to declare the race void.Pictures of the race indicate that Carpenter (intentionally or not)

blocked Halswelle.Carpenter was disqualified, and the race was ordered to be rerun in lanes

two days later; however, the other two U.S. runners refused to race, so a reluctant Halswelle

ran the race by himself to win the gold in a time of 50.2 s. It is the only occasion in Olympic

history where the final was a walkover.As a result of the controversy, from the next

Olympics in 1912 onwards all 400 metre races were run in lanes, and the International

Amateur Athletic Federation was founded to establish uniform worldwide rules for

athletics.The controversy soured Halswelle's view of athletics.He was also under pressure

from his senior officers, who felt he was being exploited, and he retired from athletics after
a farewell appearance at the 1908 Glasgow Rangers Sports.== Death ==

Halswelle, by then a captain, was killed by a sniper at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France,

during World War I, on 31 March 1915 aged 32 while attempting to rescue an injured fellow

officer.Earlier in the same battle (12 March) he was hit by shrapnel or shell fragments while

leading his men across an area known as Layes Brook but despite his wounds he refused to

be evacuated and continued at the front, although heavily bandaged.In the issue of the HLI

regimental magazine that announced his death also appeared a piece he wrote days before

it.It described a battle where 79 of his fellow soldiers died to gain 15 yards:

"I called on the men to get over the parapet...There is great difficulty in getting out of a

trench, especially for small men laden with a pack, rifle and perhaps 50 rounds in the pouch,

and a bandolier of 50 rounds hung around them, and perhaps four feet of slippery clay

perpendicular wall with sandbags on the top.I got about three men hit actually on top of the

parapet.I made a dash at the parapet and fell back.The Jocks then heaved me up and I

jumped into a ditch – an old trench filled with liquid mud – which took me some time to get

out of."His grave was marked with a wooden cross, with his name in charcoal.Later his

remains were re-interred in the Royal Irish Rifles Graveyard at Laventie, near

Armentières.In 2003, he was posthumously inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of

Fame.His Olympic medals and other trophies are displayed there.