heRoes of The pas T
John Brendan Kelly wins gold
ahead of Jack Beresford at
the 1920 Olympic Games in
Antwerp, Belgium.
IOC / Olympic Museum Collections
9
The Kelly sculling story is intertwined with that
of Jack Beresford, the Briton of Polish ancestry
who won medals in five consecutive Olympic
Games, from 1920 to 1936. Kelly entered
Henley’s Diamond Sculls, men’s single race,
in 1920, only to be rejected in controversial
circumstances. The mythical story, which did
no harm to Kelly’s hunger for publicity, says
that the Stewards rejected him because his
bricklaying experience rendered him ineligible
under the amateur definition, which ruled out
“menial and manual workers”. The real reason
was that his club, Vesper, was banned in 1905
for sending a crew to England on public
subscription – a crime incomprehensible
when seen from 100 years later.
Meanwhile, the young amateur Beresford
won the single sculls at Henley, and was then
runner-up in the single at the 1920 Olympics,
just, to Kelly, after a cat-and-mouse race.
Beresford won the single scull gold at the
1924 Olympics when Kelly and Costello were
winning the doubles. Kelly and Beresford
became great friends. Kelly remained active
in rowing during his political phase in the
thirties when “the handsomest man in
Philadelphia politics” ran, unsuccessfully, for
mayor on behalf of the Democrats.
coached his son, John Brendan Jr, to win the
Diamond Sculls in 1947. Junior was beaten
in the 1948 Olympics by an Australian,
Merv Wood, but won the Diamonds again
in 1949.
In the meantime, the youngest of his three
daughters, Grace, then a filmstar, although
courted briefly by the English sculler of the
time, Anthony Rowe, went on to marry the
Prince of Monaco. Both Grace and her son,
Prince Albert, now have trophies named after
them at Henley Royal Regatta.
The Henley rift was healed after World War II
— which Kelly spent as President Roosevelt’s
national physical fitness director — when he
■ Chris Dodd
