James Halliday (weightlifter)
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Born | 19 January 1918 Farnworth, Lancashire | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 6 June 2007 (aged 89) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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James "Jumping Jim" Halliday (19 January 1918 – 6 June 2007) was a weightlifter from Great Britain.
Weightlifting career
He competed for Great Britain in the 1948 Summer Olympics held in London, United Kingdom in the lightweight event where he finished third behind the winner, the outstanding Egyptian lifter Ibrahim Shams.[1]
He represented England and won a gold medal in the -67.5 kg division at the 1950 British Empire Games in Auckland, New Zealand.[2][3] Four years later he repeated the feat by winning another gold medal at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada.[2]
Personal life
Halliday's participation was remarkable as he had been a prisoner of war in the Far East from 1942 to 1945 having been captured when Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942. During his imprisonment, he managed to lift a barbell (which had been made from wood) over his head, something which the other British prisoners (or the Japanese guards) could not manage. As a result of this, the Japanese commander cut the British prisoners' food rations as he believed they were getting too strong. He had weighed little more than 6 stone (38 kg) after three years as a PoW, including working on the Burma Railway. Halliday subsequently won two British Empire titles in 1950 and 1954.
He worked on the coal gang at Kearsley Power Station and later became the Electricity Board's chief safety officer, travelling around the country lecturing men on how to lift heavy bags or dig holes.
References
- ^ "Profile". Sports reference.com. Archived from the original on 3 September 2011.
- ^ a b "Athletes and results". Commonwealth Games Federation.
- ^ "1950 Athletes". Team England.
- 1918 births
- English male weightlifters
- Olympic weightlifters of Great Britain
- Olympic bronze medallists for Great Britain
- Weightlifters at the 1948 Summer Olympics
- Weightlifters at the 1952 Summer Olympics
- Commonwealth Games gold medallists for England
- Weightlifters at the 1950 British Empire Games
- Weightlifters at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games
- People from Farnworth
- 2007 deaths
- Olympic medalists in weightlifting
- British Army personnel of World War II
- British World War II prisoners of war
- World War II prisoners of war held by Japan
- Burma Railway prisoners
- Medalists at the 1948 Summer Olympics
- Commonwealth Games medallists in weightlifting
- British Olympic medallist stubs
- British weightlifting biography stubs