Jack Beresford - Rowing Career

Rowing Career

In 1920, Beresford won the Diamond Challenge Sculls, the single sculls event at the Henley Royal Regatta beating in the final Donald Gollan, his closest British rival for the next few years. He followed this up competing in the single sculls event rowing at the 1920 Summer Olympics where his final race against John B. Kelly, Sr. is legendary. It featured a dramatic stretch run with Kelly eventually prevailing in one of the closest single sculls races in Olympic history. In 1920 Beresford won the Wingfield Sculls, the Amateur Sculling Championship of the Thames and Great Britain for the first time, and went on to win it for seven consecutive years, a streak unmatched in history He also won the London Cup to give him the sculling triple crown in 1920.

Beresford was losing finalist to Eyken in the Diamond Sculls in 1921 but won the London Cup and the Wingfields which was decided on a foul after Beresford's boat was holed in a clash with Gollan. Both scullers were being steered by their fathers and so in 1922 it was decided that in future fathers of competitors should not act as pilots or steer the cutters. Beresford lost Diamonds in the final to Walter Hoover but won the Wingfields and London Cup over Gollan. In 1923 Beresford was in the winning Thames eight in the Grand Challenge Cup. He was runner up in the Diamonds to M K Morris, lost to Gollan in the London Cup on a foul, but beat Gollan in the Wingfields.

Beresford won the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley again in 1924 against Craig, and went on to win the gold medal in the single scull rowing at the 1924 Summer Olympics over William Gilmore. Following that he competed in and won the Philadelphia Gold Cup, awarded by the Schuylkill Navy for the amateur sculling championship of the world. In 1925, he successfully defended the Diamond Challenge Sculls against Donald Gollan and the Philadelphia Cup against Walter Hoover before indicating to its stewards that he no longer wished to contest it. With the Wingfields and London Cup he won the triple crown. Beresford won the Diamond Challenge Sculls again in 1926 beating G E G Goddard in the final. He won the London Cup again and also the Wingfields, but only after his boat was holed in a clash and the race re-rowed on 11 August.

Beresford was not a winning competitor in 1927, but served as Captain of Thames in 1928-9. In 1928 at Henley he won the Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup partnering Gordon "Bill" Killick. He was also a member of the Thames eight which won the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta. This crew then represented Great Britain to win the silver medal rowing at the 1928 Summer Olympics. His Thames crew won the Grand Challenge Cup again in 1929 and with Killick he won Silver Goblets again. In 1930, Beresford finished second to reigning Olympic champion Henry "Bobby" Pearce in the Single Scull at the inaugural Empire/Commonwealth Games. In 1932 at Henley, Beresford competed in the coxless four which won the Stewards Challenge Cup and then went on to win the gold medal for Great Britain rowing at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

In the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Beresford was the flag bearer for the British delegation in the Opening Ceremonies, which were filmed by Leni Riefenstahl. The scene was included in her documentary Olympia, which is sometimes described as a Nazi propaganda film. Rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, with Adolf Hitler watching, Beresford and Dick Southwood his partner in the Double sculls, came from a length down to pass the favoured Germans with just 200 metres to go, thus giving Beresford his fifth Olympic medal and third gold. Beresford would later write it was "the sweetest race I ever rowed."

In the inaugural Centenary Double Sculls - now the Double Sculls Challenge Cup - at Henley in 1939, Beresford, together with Dick Southwood, raced a memorable final against the European Champions, Scherli and Broschi of Trieste which resulted in a dead-heat.

Beresford was denied the opportunity to win a medal in the double sculls event in the 1940 Olympics because those Games were cancelled because of World War II.