An opportunity to buy a slice of Olympic history with the sale on May 30th 2012 of a Silver Olympic Medal for the 100m backstroke. Miss Phyllis Harding won Olympic silver in the inaugural 100 metres backstroke at the Paris Games in the summer of 1924, being still a few months short of her 17th birthday. She attended the next three Olympics and, though she did not progress in the 1928 Games, she came fourth in the 1932 Games and seventh in the Berlin Games, both in the 100 metres backstroke. She was in fact the first woman to compete in four successive Olympics and held world records in the 100, 200 and 400 metres backstroke in 1932. The cup awarded to her at Bologna in 1927 was said to have been presented by Mussolini himself who attempted to seduce her but without success. On the other hand, she danced with Hermann Goering during the 1936 Games and found him to be “the perfect gentleman”.

The lot is sold with an official programme for the 1924 Games, three original photographs from the 1936 Games showing Miss Harding carrying the British name board, a deck of playing cards from the 1948 London Games, an original scrapbook of newspaper cuttings covering the period 1936-48 and other programmes and letters relating to her career. Estimated at £5,000-7,000 The medal is to be sold in London by leading numismatic auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb on Wednesday 30th May.

More information and images are available upon request www.dnw.co.uk 0207 016 1700 auctions@dnw.co.uk Based on information supplied by Dix Noonan Webb.