Olympic heroes, No 25: David Wilkie
When David Wilkie won the 200m breaststroke at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, the Scot created history by becoming the first male British swimmer to take gold for 68 years.
When David Wilkie won the 200m breaststroke at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, the Scot created history by becoming the first male British swimmer to take gold for 68 years.
Trained at Edinburgh’s prestigious Warrender Baths Swimming Club, he made his Olympic debut at the 1972 Munich games where he defied a lowly world ranking to claim a shock silver in the 200m breaststroke. The success saw him offered a scholarship at the University of Miami. While training in the US, he won the world 200m in 1973 and 1975 before his Olympic triumph. His victory in the 1976 final saw him smash the world record by over three seconds, while at the same Games he would go on to take silver in the 100m breaststroke. He was awarded an MBE in 1977.