Evelyn Aubrey Montague

Evelyn Aubrey Montague (20 March 1900 – 30 January 1948) was an English athlete and journalist. He ran in the 1924 Paris Olympics, placing sixth in the steeplechase race. Montague is immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, where he is portrayed by Nicholas Farrell. Contrary to the film, however, he attended Oxford, not Cambridge, and went by the name Evelyn (EEV-lin) rather than Aubrey.

Evelyn Montague was born in 1900 in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire. He was the son of journalist and novelist C. E. Montague and Madeline Scott, and the grandson of C. P. Scott, the legendary editor of the Manchester Guardian.

Montague married in 1932. He and his wife had one child, a son named Andy.

A runner from youth, in 1918 Montague won the mile and the steeplechase at the London AC Schools meeting. Beginning in 1919, he attended Oxford University at Magdalen College, where he studied journalism. He was captain of Oxford's Varsity Cross Country Club, and won the cross-country race against Cambridge (1919–20), and the 3 miles (1920–21).

In 1920, Montague was a founding member of the Achilles Club, the joint Oxford–Cambridge track and field organisation. At the age of 20, he finished fourth in the mile and second in the 4 miles at the 1920 AAA Championships. He was invited to run in the 1920 Olympic 5K, but was unable to accept. From 1921 on, he concentrated on the steeplechase, and finished second in that race at the AAA Championships (1921, 1924–25).

Montague was selected for the 1924 Olympic team for Great Britain. At the Games, he placed sixth in the 3000 metre steeplechase, as shown in the film Chariots of Fire, with a time of 9.58.0, coming in 0.4 seconds after the fifth-place runner.

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