George Ritchie Hodgson (October 12, 1893 – May 1, 1983) was a Canadian swimmer of the early 20th century, and considered by many to be the greatest swimmer in Canadian history.

He was born and died in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

.

Hodgson won the two longer freestyle swimming

Freestyle swimming

Freestyle is an unregulated swimming style used in swimming competitions according to the rules of FINA. The front crawl stroke is almost universally used during a freestyle race, as this style is generally the fastest...

 gold medals at the 1912 Olympics, the only categories in which he competed, and was undefeated in his professional career.

Personal life

George Hodgson was born in 1893 in Montreal, Canada. He matriculated at McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 in 1912, competing in swimming and water polo

Water polo

Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...

 for the school. While there, he was admitted to the Zeta Psi

Zeta Psi

The Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America was founded June 1, 1847 as a social college fraternity. The organization now comprises about fifty active chapters and twenty-five inactive chapters, encompassing roughly fifty thousand brothers, and is a founding member of the North-American...

 fraternity, and graduated with a baccalaureate in Applied Science

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 in 1916. He was inducted into the Canadian Amateur Sports Hall of Fame in 1949, the International Swimming Hall of Fame

International Swimming Hall of Fame

The International Swimming Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame, located at One Hall of Fame Drive, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States, operated by private interests serving as the central point for the study of the history of swimming in the United States and around...

 in 1968, into the McGill University Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, and died in Montreal in 1983.

Professional career

George Hodgson, Canada's only Olympic

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 gold medal winner in swimming till 1984, did not stay in competition very long, but during the 3 years he swam, he never lost a race, including the two gold medals he won at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, with times of 5:24.4s in the 400 meter and 22:00.0s in the 1500 meter freestyle. He had already set a world record of 22:23.0 in the first round of the race. He was eighteen at the time and retired immediately after one of the great races of all time. His unprecedented success was widely attributed to his innovation of the trudgen

Trudgen

The trudgen is a swimming stroke sometimes known as the racing stroke, or the East Indian stroke. It is named after the English swimmer John Trudgen ....

 stroke, a hybrid between the front crawl

Front crawl

The front crawl, forward crawl, or freestyle is a swimming stroke usually regarded as the fastest of the four front primary strokes. As such, the front crawl stroke is nearly universally used during a freestyle swimming competition, hence the synonymously used term "freestyle". It is one of two...

 and sidestroke

Sidestroke

The sidestroke is a swimming stroke, so named because the swimmer lies on one side and it is helpful as a lifesaving technique and is often used for long-distance swimming. The sidestroke allows the swimmer increased endurance because, instead of working both arms and legs simultaneously in the...

.

It was for the 1500 meter Olympic championship and Hodgson broke world and Olympic records for 1000 yards and meters, and 1 mile in addition to the prescribed 1500 meter race distance. His Olympic record at 400 meters stood until 1924 when Johnny Weissmuller

Johnny Weissmuller

Johnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies. Weissmuller was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven...

 broke it at Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. He was Canada's lone swimmer in 1912.

Olympic records

• 1912 gold (400 m freestyle)
• 1912 gold (1500 m freestyle)

Fastest freestyle mile in the 1911 Festival of Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games

Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years....

)

External links

• Olympic database - Hodgson's record in the official records
• International Swimming Hall of Fame - George Hodgson 1968 Honor Swimmer entry
• McGill University - press release on Hodgson's induction to their hall of fame