- Tram driver competed at 1908 London Games, research shows
- He is fourth earliest known black Olympian from any country
A feat of detective work – plus the chance discovery of dozens of well-preserved documents at a wrestling club in Wigan – has unlocked a remarkable secret that rewrites more than 100 years of British Olympic history, the Guardian can reveal.
The sprinter Harry Edward, who won two bronze medals at the 1920 Antwerp Games, has long been lauded as Britain’s first black Olympian. But now a team of researchers has found that Edward’s achievement was beaten by 12 years by a long forgotten black heavyweight wrestler named Louis Bruce, who reached the second round of the 1908 Olympics in London.
