Art, movies and medals: Goldsmiths’ contribution to the Olympic Games

A number of Goldsmiths, University of London alumni have close links to the Olympic Games – whether competing in the games or helping contribute to the legacy of the sporting movement.

At the London 2012 Olympic Games alumni created the official posters for the competition. Those chosen to make the prints were former students Bridget Riley, Gary Hume and Bob and Roberta Smith and former art lecturer Michael Craig-Martin.

The prints can be seen and purchased at countereditions.com, as can prints created for Rio by alumni Sam Taylor-Johnson and Sarah Jones.

We are also linked by those who have won medals at the Olympic Games. These include wrestler Sam Rabin as well as equestrian William Fox-Pitt, one of Britain’s most successful eventers.

Fox-Pitt graduated in 1993 with a BA (Hons) French Studies and was made an Honorary Fellow of Goldsmiths in 2013.

He has won team eventing medals at three separate Olympic Games – Silver at Athens 2004 and London 2012 and Bronze at Beijing 2008.

In Rio he will compete at his fifth Olympic Games when he takes to the saddle once again. Remarkably, Fox-Pitt’s inclusion comes months he was placed in an induced coma for a week following a heavy fall from his mount.

Another honorand with links to the games is Thomas Heatherwick. Made an Honorary Fellow at this summer’s graduation ceremonies, the designer was behind the celebrated Olympic cauldron at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The cauldron made up of 204 copper petals – the number representing the nations competing at London 2012 – was praised as a work of “poetic genius” by the Evening Standard and “dazzling” by The Telegraph.

Finally, two people provide a truly indelible link between Goldsmiths and the Olympic Games thanks to the film Chariots of Fire.

Honorary Fellow Lord Puttnam produced the Oscar-winning movie which charted the remarkable stories of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice.

The movie, known for its anthemic score by Vangelis, was written by Goldsmiths graduate and Honorary Fellow Colin Welland.

Chariots of Fire scooped four Oscars including Best Picture Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1982 – and led to Welland’s celebratory statement that “The British are coming”.