Reg Gaffley

Reg Gaffley first represented South Africa as a bantamweight weightlifter at a major international tournament at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, but he failed to finish the event. Four years later, however, he won his nation’s only weightlifting gold medal at the tournament by capturing the bantamweight title, although he was only selected because that year’s best national lifer, Precious McKenzie, was black. In-between he represented South Africa in the tournament at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, where he placed seventh. He retired from active competition in the 1960s and moved to England for a decade after getting married in 1961, although he eventually returned to South Africa.