Only Gold Matters

He was one of Wales’ greatest athletes. But he could have been even greater.

Cecil Griffiths won an Olympic gold medal in 1920. Then his running career was shattered, banned by the athletics authorities for receiving prize money in wartime charity races as a junior. Although this working-class Welshman broke into the world dominated by graduates from Oxford and Cambridge, he was denied his chance to line up with the 1924 Olympians who would later find fame in Chariots of Fire.

In this very personal biography by the husband of Cecil Griffiths’ granddaughter, John Hanna traces the life of Griffiths and his unequal struggle against the athletics establishment that singled him out.

John Hanna is the husband of Cecil Griffiths’ granddaughter. After a varied working life including stalking the corridors of Whitehall as a civil servant and working on the excavation of the Mary Rose as a marine archaeologist, he is now retired. This is his first book.