Wales' forgotten greatest athlete who was robbed of the chance of immortality

Just over a century ago, Cecil Griffiths had a glittering athletic career ahead of him. At just 20 years old, he won gold at the 1920 Olympic games in Antwerp for the 4 x 400m relay, making him to this day the second youngest of all British track and field athletes ever to win an Olympic gold medal.

It was no mean feat for the working class Welsh runner, who hailed from a poor family in Neath and had been headhunted by the highly selective Surrey Athletic Club. A contemporary newspaper article later dubbed him "the best runner Wales has produced" - a title which his family believe he still holds to this day.

But three years on from his precocious Olympic triumph, the runner's full opportunity to shine was cruelly taken away from him - all because he had inadvertently broken a rule for amateur athletes as a teenager. The Amateur Athletics Association discovered that six years ago, aged 17 and with no ambitions yet as a runner, he had accepted a couple of pounds as a prize money when running for charity events back home in Neath. It was enough of a contravention that the Association deemed him no longer an amateur, and banned him for life from competing for Great Britain internationally in the sport.

The ban robbed Cecil of further Olympic glory at the pinnacle of his career, as it was instated just before the famous 1924 'Chariots of Fire' Games in Paris. If he had been allowed to compete, there's a chance he would have added to his Olympic medal tally. Just a few weeks before the games, he had "comfortably" beaten his main competitor, Douglas Lowe, in the half-mile race, according to his grandson-in-law and biographer John Hanna.

The ban didn't stop Cecil from succeeding in races at home. But the Great Depression of the