Vic Pickard

Canadian track and field athlete Vic Pickard was one of the country´s best pole vaulters in the 1920s. In 1923 Pickard won his first national title in the discipline, which earned him a place on the Olympic team for the 1924 Paris Games, where he competed in both the pole vault and the javelin, finishing fifth and 28th, respectively. He then won four further national pole vault titles (1926, 1928–30) in addition to setting a Canadian record in 1929 that stood until 1951. He returned to the Olympics in 1928 for the Amsterdam Games where he just missed out on a medal when he placed fourth following a jump-off for third place. Two years later, however, he made up for his disappointment at the Olympics when he won gold at the 1930 British Empire Games in his hometown of Hamilton. Pickard was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1974 and the Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame in 2021.

Personal Bests: PV – 4.21i (1929); JT – 52.84 (1929).