Running with Harold Abrahams (1924)

[@davidbirks7166]

Almost 40 years after seeing Chariots of Fire, I can't believe I'm watching this footage. The real Harold Abrahams and Sam Mussabini.

[@igalflint]

YES!

[@markbrett2969]

And I'm watching 5 years later than that..!

[@DardanellesBy108]

Those of us that are interested in history are very interested in videos such as this one. Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams were huge in their day. I've seen Eric Liddell videos but this is the first time I've seen one with Abrahams. Thanks for the post!

[@nitramgnal]

This is a fabulous piece of film.

[@ewaf88]

It's Christmas eve 2022 and just watching Chariots of Fire on the television. It's remarkable how similar Ben Cross is to Harold Abrahams in looks

[@danoslehoy]

Wonderful historical material. Great

[@Celluloidwatcher]

Thank you for the video on the real Harold Abrahams, with view of the real S.A. Massabini (trainer). An eye-opener for history buffs. Saw Chariots of Fire earlier in the day, which also focused on Eric Liddell and his running feats.

[@joaofernandes4769]

Just seen "Chariots of fire" and came here to see the real thing!

[@williamschroeder3070]

Great footage, thanks for posting. Ahrahams best 100 meter time was 10.6. I believe that on a modern track with modern shoes he would run a 10.3. With modern training, maybe 10.1 high. I'd like to see a modern 100 meter man run on a similar track with similar shoes and similar starting (no blocks). Surely Nike could set this up; they did the sub 2 hour marathon attempt with Kipchoge. Don't know if you could convince any of today's top sprinters to give it a try, but it would be interesting.

[@washline]

According to the supplements in the film, Abrahams was timed at 9.6 for his fastest time in preparation for the Olympics.

[@theresamahfouz790]

@@washline Harold Abrahams ran 9.6 seconds for the 100 yards, not the 100 meters. 9.6 seconds in the 100 yards translates to about 10.6 seconds for the 100 meters. Eric Liddell ran the 100 yards in 9.65 seconds at the AAA Championships a year before. Had Liddell continued training for the 100 yards, I'm sure he would have run faster than 9.6 seconds, but when he found out the Olympic heats for the 100 meters were on his Sabbath, he immediately began focusing on the 400 meters instead.

[@nsxperformance]

@@theresamahfouz790Liddell's best I can see officially is 9.7.. Abrahams 10.6 in semi finals of 1924 Olympics with an atrocious start which saw him 2yd down after the first 50, is superior to his final performance imo

[@baldassassin1]

Awesome to see the best runner back in the day. Looks so different from the muscled runners of today. Thanks for sharing.

[@nsxperformance]

@@frankschlankerThey never actually raced over the 100 either yards or metres, it's artistic license for the film

[@TTraveller3]

Outstanding historical video! More than 100 years old!!!! The world was a simpler place. People were kinder. Athletes ran for the enjoyment. Wonderful times!!!!❤❤❤

[@fritzhenning1]

Don't wish to disagree but 'The world was a simpler place. People were kinder', are sweeping statements.

[@robpugh1000]

History would suggest the world back then was far from simple or kind. Fascism was about to spread through Europe and we were between 2 of the most bloody and violent wars of modern times. I noti e these comments a lot. I think l they're put there to provoke a reaction

[@DevonMiniFlicks]

You always come across these incredibly naive sweeping statements on vids like this.

[@hotrock388]

The world was not very kind to those under racist colonial rule. Which by the way was the vast majority of the world's population. Remember that!

[@GianniTuratta]

4:04 a so old video with all that frames ?!? incredible

[@michaelturner3405]

My grandfather John Harry Turner/Harry Turner was a close rival and qualified for the team but could not afford the trip to the Amsterdam olympics Amateur Athletics..

[@michaelturner3405]

I have many paper cuttings and a good photo.

[@johnscone9382]

Wouldn’t the AAAs help him with expenses ?

[@capt.lovestarii2752]

Note the low drive phase. That's the teaching of Mussabini.

[@ripperduck]

On dirt, cutting your own blocks, amazing that they could get 10.5 secs or less. That's what I think he ran consistently. In those conditions. Amazing....

[@jeansilvas]

You tube is amazing, and these clips are 90 years old, Harolds coach Masambini was way ahead of time these are early day coaching vids.Amazing.If liddel had run the 100 would he have taken gold? I wonder.

[@jonathanbower863]

Mussabini

[@mightyigor1791]

I think so. He beat Abraham's prior to the Olympics. But he refused to run on a Sunday due to his religious beliefs

[@tedpeters896]

Liddel was no training slouch. He set the world record in the 400 after training for several months.

[@downhill240]

Marvelous film!

[@brianmcd9492]

Harold Abhrams Leaning forward and Dipping forward at the line a great example on how to finish and Win a Gold Medal Race 🙂👍

[@brianmcd9492]

🙂👍

[@OUTBOUND184]

Couple of idiotic comments on here. This is a fantastic video.

[@olliebaum]

They should have added the Chariots of Fire music from 4:00 onwards

[@evoman1776]

I was impressed with those high tech starting blocks they had back then.

Wow...100 years ago...👍👍

[@bigfur4983]

At the 2:24 mark, we see Abrahams sprinting. The stride looks fine, but we know nowadays that the forward lean he is using slows a runner down significantly. At peak speed, runners today are ramrod straight.

[@zytigon]

Thanks for this, do you think that the soft surface was part of the reason for them taking longer to run the 100m. Now with firm surface and trainers maybe knocks 2 seconds off ? It would be interesting to put Bolt onto this sandy running track . What was it actually made of ?

[@peterhoughton3770]

All interesting comments below re: shoes, track surface, nutrition, professionalism etc. The factor going in their favour though was ambient fitness. This generation moved much more. Their training load may have been lower but background exercise was much higher. In distance athletics we spend a lot of time analysing why African runners are so much stronger. There are a few genetic adaptations to altitude etc but in the case of people like Sellasse and Gherouj we know that in their childhoods it was not unusual to run 10ks a day just to get to school. That's a very different childhood to a kid in the west dropped to school in an SUV and waddling in to stare at a screen. We have had to significantly drop entry fitness levels into the military for example as average fitness has plummeted. Calculations have been done on Jesse Owens for example and with his performance adjusted for technology - not even looking at training - he finishes second to Usain Bolt in London 2012 by a 100th of a second.

[@pighigibson1680]

VERY GOOD.

[@dfadden62]

Is there no sound?

[@JonnKammeron]

I am also amazed. Perhaps, and I speculate here, could there be a fundamental limitation to our human capacity to run related to Attitude, Muscle Mass,Oxygen Utilization and Traction Etc ?

[@emenem6131]

Imagine racing on a national or international level and digging holes for starting blocks. 😉 Much respect for guys and gals that raced on dirt and leather spikes. To lower the sprint times they (to this day) keep improving the track surface and the shoe technology for faster and faster times. Not sure what to think about that with so much talk about greatest of all time thrown around

[@ouibscfdadade1245]

3:22

[@chrisverby3047]

This man ran a 10.6 100m on that track, with those training methods, in those shoes. What would his time be today?

[@martintownsend6694]

Probably the same as these were all hand timed races and they reckon it was about 0.3s quicker timing by hand so technically 10.9 ish then in real time

[@lahtal1]

Any idea where this was filmed?

[@benbelcher2056]

White City stadium would be my guess. Certainly matches up to old photos of 1908 Olympics.

[@alt9925]

2024!

[@ritanurul8340]

Untuk sampai kesana perlu ada kompetisi ada arena

[@strommie65]

top stuff. have just finished reading "the dirtiest race in history" (crap book, way too much moralising) about the infamous mens' 100m final at the seoul olympics in 1988 where ben johnson claimed gold and set a new world record of 9.79s. considering that ben johnson, muscled up to the eyeballs (next to whom harold abrahams resembles an underfed POW inmate), had trained his arse off full-time under legendary canadian coach charlie francis (who also wrote a fab book about this called "speed trap"), utilising every modern training technique & methodology going including anabolic steroids/PEDs and was able to perform under an optimum set of conditions & circumstances (track, kit, nutrition etc), his performance was still less than a second's (barely 7.7%) improvement on harold abraham's 10.6s at the paris olympics in 1924.

[@mstrunn]

@strommie65 Charlie Francis is the GOAT sprint coach there ever was; he had a great program which made a lot of sense; he knew being a sprinter himself what was needed to win Gold in 88, he gave an ultimatum to his team, most all the sprinters are taking something, it's very simple, take it and possibly win, don't take them and lose for sure, some of his team took the PED's, some did not, the 100m final in 88 had at least 6 of the 8 on something, don't chastise CF for that, Ben was a scapegoat as we now know that the blood results suddenly disappeared for many who won medals including Americans.

[@WaveRogue]

Whats up with the volume?

[@igalflint]

HAHAHAHAHA. SILENT MOVIE AS ALL FILMS WERE BY THEN!

[@igalflint]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eWawkopvbM98frM

[@thedoogs]

That's a brilliant piece of maths isn't it.

[@justjokinntokin5474]

Tyreek hill: 1:07 I’m in trouble 😰

[@ritanurul8340]

Pergi kamu dari situ

[@ΔημήτρηςΛουκάς-κ8μ]

Αθινα. Ολημπηακη. Άγονες. Ζήλια. Ενιακοσχια. Ηκοσητεσηρα

[@MrGlenshee]

Ill-considered and naive comment. A brilliant piece of British sporting historical archive which some Americans, I'm assuming that is your nationality, would find difficult to identify with. Jessie Owens at Berlin in 1936, do you not 'give a damn' about that 'foot race'?

[@ritanurul8340]

Larilah kamu apabila kamu tidak bisa pecahkan masalah masalah

[@antonberveno5476]

Зачем я это смотрю в час ночи :)

[@JamaicanEyeKandy]

they run barefeet on hard rocks and so in jamaica tht wont b much a challenge for him, try one of thm american runners n thn ull see

[@NickCager]

Let's be real for just a moment. There were MANY people faster than Mr. Abrahams at that time. Sports back then was primarily reserved for the tops universities. The best athletes weren't participating.

[@michaeldevaney5728]

Who was faster have you got their names

[@NickCager]

@@michaeldevaney5728 We'll never know their names... but I'd say there were a few hundred Black kids here in the U.S. alone that would've smoked him.

[@nickflaherty9532]

So you're just making things up to support yohr own prejudices....

[@NickCager]

@@nickflaherty9532 You think 11.0 hundred meters was the fast human back then?

[@bigbelly69-c4x]

FYI , the 1924 Olympic final winning time was 10.6 , beating the 1920 champ Charlie Paddock ​@@NickCager

[@stephenlever419]

The fastest ever Jew ,,, 🇮🇱

[@ziggycat999]

Reality check.....whom gives a damn who won a foot race 72 years ago!

[@mightyigor1791]

ziggycat999 loads of ppl