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Tom Darcey Tasmanian Olympian |
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Friday, 23 November 2007 |
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I've been working on something for months now and it has finally paid off. The Examiner newspaper published a list of Tasmanian Olympians a while ago that left out my Grandfather. Thomas Darcey represented Australia in rowing at the London Olympics in 1948. He was my mum's father and we were all a bit miffed that he wasn't on the list. I did a bunch of research and found a number of issues that could have led to him being omitted. Whilst he was born and died in Tasmania, he was serving in Melbourne with the Australian Air Force after returning from PNG during World War Two when a local rowing club at the time decided to enter their coxed eight in the Olympic trials. As Tom had been rowing with that club whilst he was in Melbourne he competed with them. Tom's team won the trial event and went on to represent Australia in London, however since it was a Melbourne club that entered the selection trials there could have been some confusion over Tom's allegiance. Another issue is that there are three separate "official" lists of Tasmanian Olympians kept. The Tasmanian Olympic Commission have the Role of Honour and the Olympians Club. One is a list of all Tasmanian Olympians and the other is a list of living Tasmanian Olympians. The Tasmanian Institute of Sport also maintain a list, but from what I've heard, that one contains mainlanders who moved to Tasmania after the Olympics. Tom Darcey was only listed on one of the TOC's lists and not on the others. Once I got all that sorted out I asked the Examiner to correct their omission on the public record. That resulted in the following story. Many thanks to Rob Shaw the sports editor at the Examiner for taking this seriously and writing the correction.
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