page_title: Harold Abrahams
section_title: Honours
hierarchical_section_title: Harold Abrahams / Honours
caption_attribution_description: English: Sue Pottle unveiling blue plaque dedicated to her father Harold Abrahams, Olympic gold medallist at Hodford Lodge, 2 Hodford Road, Golders Green, London NW11 8NP, London Borough of Barnet. Taken by me Casper Pottle, 17 May 2007
context_page_description: Harold Maurice Abrahams, CBE was an English track and field athlete. He was Olympic champion in 1924 in the 100 metres sprint, a feat depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.
context_section_description: Abrahams was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1957. Abrahams has been recognised with an English Heritage Blue plaque at his former home in Golders Green in northwest London, which was unveiled by his daughter Sue Pottle and nephew Tony Abrahams. Abrahams lived at Hodford Lodge, 2 Hodford Road, from 1923 to 1930, years during which he achieved his greatest successes.
  A plaque from the Heritage Foundation was unveiled at his birthplace, Rutland Road in Bedford, on 8 July 2012. This coincided with the Olympic torch relay passing through the town.
  Abrahams was immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, in which he was played by British actor Ben Cross. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. His memorial service serves as the framing device for the movie, which tells his story and that of Liddell.
  Abrahams was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1981 and into the England Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.
  In July 2012, plans were announced to erect a memorial to Abrahams in Telford, Shropshire to recognise that before the 1924 Olympics he won a gold medal in the 100-yard sprint at the Midlands Area AAA championships at St George's Recreation Club ground. The memorial, in the form of a plaque, was unveiled by Sue Pottle in October 2014 in the lounge of the club, which now possesses the medal he won at the event.
  Norris McWhirter once commented that Abrahams "managed by sheer force of personality and with very few allies to raise athletics from a minor to a major national sport". Reflecting in 1948 on Abrahams' athleticism, Philip Noel-Baker, Britain's 1912 Olympic captain and a Nobel Prize winner, wrote:
  I have always believed that Harold Abrahams was the only European sprinter who could have run with Jesse Owens, Ralph Metcalfe, and the other great sprinters from the U.S. He was in their class, not only because of natural gifts – his magnificent physique, his splendid racing temperament, his flair for the big occasion – but because he understood athletics and had given more brainpower and more will power to the subject than any other runner of his day.
caption: Abrahams' daughter Sue Pottle unveiling the English Heritage Blue plaque commemorating Abrahams in Golders Green
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