Australian Olympic officials visit grave of remarkable Australian, Cecil Healy in French countryside

Australian Olympic officials have paid a visit to the grave of remarkable Australian, swimming champion and advocate and war hero, Cecil Healy in the French countryside of Assevillers.

Australian 2024 Paris Olympic Wreath Laying at Cecil Healy’s grave in Assevillers, France. Picture: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images for the AOC

Deep in the French countryside, in the heart of the Somme’s fiercest World War One battles, lies the grave of a remarkable Australian sprinkled with some sand from Manly Beach.

Cecil Healy is so special, the local Assevillers villagers raised money for a separate statue outside of their town hall, and on Wednesday the Australian Olympic Committee and Australian government officials arrived to lay wreaths ahead of the Paris Olympic Games.

Healy was not only an Olympic gold, silver and bronze swimming medallist, he was a revered surf lifesaver who rescued a child from the wild surf, helped to found the Manly surf club, and was one of the first proponents of the turn of the 20th century new fangled swimming stroke, the crawl, developing the side breathing technique.

Australian Olympic officials and Australian cyclist, Kaarle McCulloch places a wreath on the grave of Cecil Healy on July 17, 2024 in Assevillers, France. Picture: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images for the AOC

The Australian Olympic Committee has an award in his name, recognising his exceptional sportsmanship when he insisted that officials reinstate the United States swim team which had arrived late for the semi-finals of the 100m freestyle at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, having been given the wrong start time.

One of those Americans, Duke Kahanamoku would then go on to beat Healy for the gold medal in the final and Healy encouraged him to come to Australia, which he did two years later, introducing surfing to the country.

Healy also has another, less auspicious distinction: he is the only Australian Olympic gold medallist to have died in combat.

Healy found himself deployed to Egypt, Britain and France after enrolling in 1915.

“It is so special being here and I had a little tear in my eye laying the wreath,’’ said Australian deputy chef de mission Kaarle McCulloch, who hails from Nowra where Healy had done some of his schooling. She noted how the French regularly commemorate and honour those who fought in the Great War and they have tremendous attachment to Australia who gave their men to fight for liberty.

Cecil Healy, the gold and silver medal winning swimmer from the Stockholm 1912 Games. Picture: Supplied

Cecil Healy's grave in Assevillers, France. Picture: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images for the AOC

On September 12, 1918, Le Journal reported that Lieut. Cecil Healy, a “widely known Australian swimmer”, had been killed by a bullet on the Somme battlefield nearly two weeks earlier. He had been a member of the 19th Sportsman’s Battalion and the paper records how Healy had led a party of 500 swimmers across the Somme, enveloped the enemy positions, and captured Mont St. Quentin, the key to the nearby town of Peronne.

Healy’s death was so shocking, the former Wallaby rugby union captain and Healy’s commander Major Syd Middleton said the world had lost one of its greatest champions and one of its best men.

“Today in the four years I have been at the front, I wept for the first time,’’ he wrote.

On Wednesday Moscow Olympic gold medallist, swimmer Michelle Ford joined officials from Australia and France to honour Healy with the laying of wreaths. Australian Olympic Committee communications director Strath Gordon also sprinkled some sand from Manly Beach onto his grave.

Originally published as Australian Olympic officials visit grave of remarkable Australian, Cecil Healy in French countryside