Philippe, Vicomte Le Hardy de Beaulieu

Philippe Le Hardy de Beaulieu graduated from the Collège Saint-Michel in Bruxelles (Brussels) in 1906. In the same year, he was sent with a team of rookies to represent Belgium at the Intercalated Games at Athens where they won a bronze medal thanks to a victory over the Dutch team. In the following years, he was part of Belgian teams at 18 international events, for instance, in Ostende, London, Ghent and Geneve. With the industrial team he won the King’s Prize in the Belgian Intercorporation Challenge in 1920. Le Hardy de Beaulieu competed in the 1912 and 1920 Olympic Games winning an individual bronze in Stockholm and a team silver, both with the épée.

Le Hardy de Beaulieu served as a volunteer in World War I and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with palm, the Yser Medal, and the English Medal “For Bravery in the Field”. He is said to have been a member of the resistance in the secret Army. He died suddenly from infectious pneumonia at the age of just 35.