King's and the Olympic Games
UL Boat Club, 1959
King's students remain committed to giving their all on the field of sport as
well as in academic life and have competed in a number of Olympic games.
Elspeth Whyte, President of the Queen Elizabeth College Athletic Union, for example, represented Great Britain in the Shot and Discus at the London Olympics in 1948. An excellent all-round athlete, she also became the British Women's Shot Champion and record holder.
Jeff Reeves, a Chelsea College student in the early 1960s rowed alongside Stewart Farquharson in the coxed pairs at Lake Albano during the Rome Olympics in 1960. Their cox was a schoolboy, Ken Lester, at 15 the youngest competitor on the British team and so lightweight the boat had to carry additional weights to remain within the rules.
Long Distance Championship 1960
The pair also faced problems when they discovered that their boat was an old
fashioned design in which the cox sat at the stern - in newer boats the cox lay
on his back at the front of the boat. This kept the centre of gravity low and
made rowing easier.
Jeff Reeves and Farquharson, now a renowned anaesthetist, later teamed up again during a veterans' eight at Henley in 1999, though Reeves recalled that it was some comfort that now later in life 'rowing next to me was one of the world's best resuscitators'.
In this exhibition
- Fitness
- Food
- Fairness
- Fun
- Sport at King's
- Rugby
- The United Hospitals Challenge Cup
- Rugby today
- Rowing
- Athletics
- Other sports
- King's and the Olympic Games
- Recent success
- Future

