Jim Giraud

Jacques Giraud, better known as Jim, won a silver medal as part of the Smryrna (Turkey) Football Club at the 1906 Athens Olympics. He also competed in the tennis competition but after a walkover against the Italian Gine de Martino in the first round he was beaten in three sets by the Dutchman Karel Beukema in the next round.

Giraud was born in the Levant community in Smyrna at the end of the 19th century. His father was married to Mary Adelaide Whittall and Jim’s brother Edmund was also in the 1906 Olympic team. Also in that team were six of his cousins; Albert, Edward, Godfrey, Donald and Herbert Whitall, whose fathers were all brothers of Mary Whittall, and Percy la Fontaine whose mother Edith was Mary’s sister.