Julian Creus

A Liverpool docker, from the Huyton district of the city, Julian Creus stood just over 5-feet, but his achievements defied his frame. He went on to win an Olympic silver medal, from three Olympic appearances, was also a double World Championship bronze medalist and European Championship gold and double silver medalist, and also won an Empire Games silver. He held World and Empire records for the snatch in the bantamweight and featherweight divisions, and was also the holder of six British records.

Creus took up weightlifting at the age of 17, after a fall from a rooftop left him with two broken legs. He was originally a member of the Bootle Weightlifting Club and, 14 years after taking up the sport, was the 1948 Olympic bantamweight silver medalist, and also the European bantamweight champion. By 1950 he was lifting in the featherweight division, and that year won a European and Empire Games silver medal and a bronze at the World Championships. He repeated his World and European medals in 1951 and, the following year, competed in his second Olympics. Despite lifting with a broken bone in his foot, received in a dockside accident in Liverpool, he finished ninth at Helsinki in the featherweight class. Creus retired from the sport in 1954 but made a stunning return two years later when he won another British title at the age of 39. It earned him a call-up for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

Creus fell in love with Australia, and he decided to emigrate there with his wife and six of their children in December 1960. He went to the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh as an advisor, and was asked by the Australians to lift for them while there. He was 53 at the time, and declined.