Percy Legard

The son of a British naval officer, Percy Legard’s mother was the daughter of a Swedish businessman and consequently he spent part of his early childhood in Sweden where he learned to ski. He returned to England to complete his education at Cheltenham College, where he was a fine swimmer and cross-country runner. After Cheltenham, Legard went to the Sandhurst Military College where he continued running and also played polo, eventually becoming a regular on the Inniskilling Dragoon Guards team, into which he was commissioned in 1926, thus maintaining the family’s long Army tradition. Legard won the 1929 British Ski Jumping and British Long Distance Ski-racing titles, and after taking up the modern pentathlon in 1931, won the All-England competition at Aldershot the following year, when he also competed at the Los Angeles Olympics. He finished eighth overall in the 1932 Games, despite winning the 4km cross country phase. Legard twice competed in the World Modern Pentathlon Championships, in 1931 and 1934, and in 1935 won the British title.

In 1936, Legard had the distinction of becoming a dual Winter and Summer Olympian, when he competed in the Nordic combined event at Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympics and the modern pentathlon at the Berlin Games six months later. Going into the 2018 Winter Olympics, he remains the only Briton to have competed in the Nordic combined.

Legard served in one of Winston Churchill’s new Commando units during World War II before returning to his regiment, where he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He appeared in his third Olympics in 1948, in the demonstration winter pentathlon competition. The following year he competed in the first ever Badminton Three Day horse trial, but his horse Varne let him down on the cross country section. A keen follower of the Turf, Legard was a racehorse owner, and was also a keen sailor, competing in the 5.5-metre event at Cowes in 1961.