Cecil Griffiths
Inducted 2012
Track
One of only four Welsh athletes to win Olympic gold. Griffiths won the 4x400m relay at Antwerp 1920 aged 20. His Welsh 440 yards record of 49.8 seconds stood for 32 years. The first posthumous Hall of Fame inductee.
Biography
Cecil Redvers Griffiths (1900-1945) was born in Neath and stands as one of only four Welsh athletes to win Olympic gold. At just 20 years of age, he was a member of Britain’s victorious 4 x 400m relay team at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.
His Welsh 440 yards record of 49.8 seconds, set at Barry Island in 1921, remained unbroken for 32 years. He won ten Welsh titles in total, including five consecutive 440 yards championships between 1920 and 1924, and was a finalist at the AAA Championships for nine successive years.
Griffiths passed away in 1945 from heart failure at the age of 45. He became the first posthumous inductee into the Welsh Athletics Hall of Fame, recognised as one of Welsh athletics’ all-time greats.