The football used for the 1908 final.
University of East London joins IOC Olympic Studies Network
by Philip Barker
The archive which inspired the makers of the Oscar winning film “Chariots of Fire” has been recognised by the Olympic Studies Centre (OSC) in Lausanne.
The University of East London (UEL) has now become a member of the global Olympic studies network. It is only the fifth institution in the United Kingdom to be accorded this status.
Students at UEL are given the opportunity to examine Olympic-related material across a range of courses.
“Our goal is to make the British Olympic Archive collection discoverable and accessible through research and community engagement,” said UEL Head Of Content And Digital Environments, Library and Learning Services Krishna Roy-Chowdhury.
“We welcome researchers to engage with the collection and create more research and educational resources. We want to engage local communities with our Olympic heritage and emphasise how sports have a positive effect on physical and mental health on all age groups.”
The UEL has been the custodian of the British Olympic Archive collection since 2009. Since then, the collection has been extensively catalogued.
A great deal of the material was collected by the longtime British Olympic Association Secretary Kenneth Sandilands Duncan, known to all as “Sandy.”
It also includes documentation from the foundation of the British Olympic Association in 1905 and material from the London Olympic Games of 1908, 1948 and 2012. There are official reports and other magazines including an extensive collection of the British Olympic Journal and its successor World Sports Magazine.
There is also the scrapbook consulted by Chariots of Fire Producer David Puttnam when he was researching the story of Eric Liddell.
Some material from the archive had been lost in a series of floods in the 1990s but the archive contains some invaluable documentation including programmes and correspondence from IOC Sessions held in London.
UEL also looks after Torches and other Olympic artifacts including the ball used in the 1908 Football final and the Union Flag paraded at those Games.
UEL was also a training centre for the United States team during the 2012 London Olympics.
“The area of East London and the University of East London have a strong connection with the Olympics,” said UEL Associate Professor in Exercise Physiology Andy Galbraith.
“This recognition by the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Studies Centre is a
fantastic opportunity for UEL to continue this legacy, fostering enhanced opportunities for Olympic related teaching, community outreach and research.”
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