Between 1933-40, wrestler Arthur Thompson won an unprecedented eight successive British freestyle lightweight titles. At the 1935 European Championships in Bruxelles he was the only member of the British team to reach a semi-final, but lost to Finland’s Hermanni Pihlajamäki, who also beat Thompson in the second round at the Berlin Olympics a year later. In addition to his British titles, Thompson won many Yorkshire and Northern Counties titles. In the mid-1940s he briefly tried his hand at the professional branch of the sport.
Great Britain