Charles Pahud de Mortanges

Charles Pahud de Mortanges remains the only rider to have successfully defended an Olympic individual championship in the three-day event (through 2012). He won those gold medals in 1928 and 1932. Overall, de Mortanges’ Olympic record included four golds and one silver. He won all of these in the three-day event. He added team golds in 1924 and 1928 and a team silver in 1932. Pahud de Mortanges trained at the Royal Netherlands Military Academy, where he became a horseman, and later attended an instructors course at the Military Riding School in Amersfoort.

Pahud de Mortanges left school to join the Army in World War I. In World War II his unit was overrun by German tanks and he was placed in charge of a rehab center for wounded soldiers. In May 1942 he was taken prisoner, as were all Dutch officers, and he was sent to Poland. He was released to be sent home for treatment on an injured wrist, and escaped from a train on the journey home, although he had given his “word of honor as a Dutch officer” not to attempt that. He made his way to Gibraltar and then England, from which he joined the Free Dutch Forces, becoming second-in-command of the Princess Irene Brigade, with whom he participated in the Normandy Landings.

Pahud de Mortanges became Chief of the Military House of Queen Juliana, retiring in 1962 as Chief Master of Ceremonies of the Dutch Court as a Lieutenant-General. When his successor, Lieutenant-General Schaper was nominated one year later as Deputy Minister of the Dutch Government, Pahud de Mortanges returned to the Royal Court as Chief of the Military House, but definitively retired after one more year.

In sports administration Pahud de Mortanges was President of the Dutch Olympic Committee from 1946-51 and 1959-61. He was named an IOC Member in September 1946 and served until his resignation in October 1964, after which he was named an Honorary Member.