Charles Sydney Smith

Charles Sydney Smith (26 January 1879 – 6 April 1951[1]) was born in Wigan, the ninth of eleven children born to Thomas Smith and Elizabeth née Sayer. He was a British water polo player who competed as goalkeeper for the England Water Polo team which won gold medals in the London games of 1908, and the Stockholm games of 1912. After the Great War he returned, at the age of 44, as part of the Great Britain team to win a third gold medal at the Antwerp games in 1920. He was still in the team four years later competing in the Paris games of 1924 where the team was knocked out in the first round by the Hungarian team after extra time.

This article is about the water polo player. For the mayor of Providence, see Charles Sydney Smith (mayor).
For other people with the same name, see Charles Smith (disambiguation).

Olympic medal record
Men's Water Polo
1908 London Team competition
1912 Stockholm Team competition
1920 Antwerp Team competition

Smith is the oldest water polo player to compete at the Olympics. On 13 July 1924, he played his last match at the age of 45 years and 169 days in the Paris Olympics. Smith is also the oldest Olympic gold medalist in water polo. At the age of 41 years and 216 days, he won the third Olympic gold medal on 29 August 1920. Smith is one of ten male athletes who won three Olympic gold medals in water polo.[1]

Smith was chosen to represent the country as the flag bearer at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. This made him the first competing athlete to carry the flag for Great Britain, and the first water polo player to be a flag bearer at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics.

See also

References
  1. "Charles Smith". sports-reference.com. Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 1 May 2020.


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