leg before building up a 10 m lead in his leg. Les Boardman extended the lead to 15 m before Harold Hardwick held off Duke Kahanamoku to claim the gold medal in the world record time of 10:11.6. The final was the third time that a world record had been set in that event at the Stockholm games, the first two times occurring on 12 July with the United States team swimming 10:26.4, only to be bettered later that day by the Australasian team who swam 10:14.0 (the United States team won the silver medal in the final). Honours Champion was New Zealand's only Olympic gold medalist in swimming until 1996, when Danyon Loader won in the 200 m and 400 m freestyle events at the Atlanta Olympics. In 1990 Champion became an inaugural inductee into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. In 2005 the winning relay team was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, making Champion the only non-Australian inductee. Like Billy Savidan after him, he was for some years Custodian at Auckland's Tepid Baths, and the walls of his office were adorned with sketches of ships by him. See also List of Olympic medalists in swimming (men) World record progression 4 × 200 metres freestyle relay References Sources Ron Palenski, Champion - New Zealand's first Olympic winner, published by the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, 1912. External links Biography at New Zealand Olympic Committee website Swimmers from Auckland New Zealand people of Cornish descent New Zealand male swimmers Olympic gold medalists for Australasia Olympic swimmers of Australasia Swimmers at the 1912 Summer Olympics Norfolk Island sportspeople People from Norfolk Island Pitcairn Islands people World record setters in swimming New Zealand male freestyle swimmers Medalists at the 1912 Summer Olympics Norfolk Island people of New Zealand descent Olympic gold medalists in swimming 1882 births 1939 deaths