Tom Archdeacon: Area has proud history producing Olympians

We had two track and field athletes — sprinter Francis A. Lanes and pole-vaulter Albert C. Tyler, both of whom are Franklin High grads and are enshrined in the school’s hall of fame — who were in the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896.

And now we have two more Olympians — Middletown’s Kayla Harrison in judo and Clayton Murphy, the Tri-Village High grad who’ll run the 800 — at the Rio Games that kicked off in Brazil on Friday.

Swimmer Charles Daniels is our most prolific medal winner. He won eight, including five gold, at the 1904 Games in St Louis, the 1908 London Games and the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, a competition the International Olympic Committee initially sanctioned (hence we count the one gold he won there) but now does not recognize as an Olympiad.

Dayton’s Edwin Moses is considered the greatest Olympic hurdler and Hamilton’s Darrell Pace is equally recognized in Olympic archery. The pair are the only U.S. Olympians who won gold at the 1976 Montreal Games, were forced to sit out in 1980 when the U.S. boycotted the Games in Moscow and then came back eight years after their last trip to the podium to win gold again at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

Speaking of those boycotted Russian games, we did have one athlete compete in Moscow. Former University of Dayton basketball standout Mike Sylvester competed for the Italian hoops team and won silver.

West Milton’s Bob Schul won the 5,000 meters at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and remains the only American to win the event. Similarly, when Harrison won gold in judo’s 78-kilogram division at the London Games, she became the first American to win Olympic gold in judo.

A few years back we had husband and wife Olympians in Maurice and Janelle Wignall.

They lived in Kettering and Janelle used to be an assistant swimming coach at Wright State. She swam for Jamaica in the 2000 Sydney Games (finishing fourth in the 400 meter freestyle) and in the 2004 Athens Games while her husband, also representing Jamaica, finished fourth in the 110-meter hurdles at the Athens Games

As for the medals, they’ve met varying fates.

Schul’s was stolen. Long jumper Joe Greene’s two bronze medals from the 1992 Barcelona Games and 1996 Atlanta Games ended up in a Las Vegas pawn shop and Moses’ medals were put on display at the Smithsonian.