On 25th of May 1935 the 21-year-old Owens averaged a world record every nine minutes at the Big Ten Championships. Five world leading marks and one world equalling effort, all completed with an injury severe enough for his coach to seriously consider pulling him out of the meet at the last minute.

Women’s speed skating received official recognition in 1931 when the International Skating Union (ISU) registered the 500m, 1,000m and 1,500m world records established by the discipline’s pioneering exponents. It was consequently added to the programme of the 1932 Lake Placid Games, but only as a demonstration sport.

Although Lord Burghley is perhaps best remembered for a character and scene from the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, it is his outstanding hurdling that the record books will recognise most.

The pair skating competition at St Moritz 1928 took place on the morning of the final day of the Games, along with the last two ice hockey matches. Thirteen pairs representing ten nations took part, among them France’s Andrée Joly and Pierre Brunet, who first teamed up a few months before Chamonix 1924, where they won bronze.

Ivar Ballangrud was only 19 when he first got himself noticed on the international speed skating scene, though he made his arrival a little too late to earn a place at the inaugural Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924. One month later, however, the young Norwegian outskated newly crowned Olympic 10,000m champion Julius Skutnabb of Finland over the same distance at the World Allround Speed Skating Championships in Helsinki. Two years later Ballangrud won the first of his four titles and 11 medals in all at the world championships held on home ice in Trondheim.

Norwegian speed skater Bernt Evensen had a record to set straight when he lined up in the 500m at St Moritz 1928. Four years earlier in Chamonix, Norway’s finest had to content themselves with the minor medals after seeing the USA’s Charles Jewtraw win gold in 500m, Finland’s Clas Thunberg do likewise in the 1,500m, 5,000m and all-round events and fellow Finn Julius Skutnabb take the 10,000m title.

Given American dominance in the 400m hurdles over the years, it’s hard to believe the event was run so rarely in the 1920s. The ultimate test of sprinting endurance and perfectly timed stride patterns was only held at national collegiate level in the US during Olympic years.

Born in Vienna (AUT) on 22 February 1902, Herma Szabo had figure skating in her blood. She was the daughter of Christa Von Szabo, herself a two-time world champion in pair skating, and niece of Eduard Engelmann Jr., a three-time European men’s singles champion and the man behind the 1909 construction of the world’s first open-air artificial ice rink. Not surprisingly, she learned to skate from an early age. After showing great promise on the ice, she went on to fulfil her potential by amassing five consecutive individual gold medals at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships between 1922 and 1926, as well as two pairs titles with Ludwig Wrede (AUT) in 1925 and 1927.