George de Relwyskow

George Frederick William de Relwyskow (18 June 1887 – 9 November 1942) was an English sport wrestler who competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics for Great Britain.

Biography

Born in Kensington in 1887, the son of immigrants from the Russian Empire, de Relwyskow took up wrestling as a means of keeping fit while a student in London training as an artist and designer. By 1907, he had won thirty-five open competitions in Great Britain and won the amateur championships at lightweight and middleweight at the British Wrestling Championships in 1907 and 1908. Because of his success, he was selected to represent Great Britain in the 1908 Olympics held in London.

On the outbreak of the First World War, de Relwyskow returned to Britain from South America, where he was on a wrestling tour to enlist in the Army. He served as a gymnastic and bayonet-fighting trainer and served for a period with the Australian infantry. In France, he trained soldiers in the use of unarmed combat. In October 1918, de Relwyskow was based at Aldershot as a Royal Army Physical Training Corps instructor in the Army system of wrestling, a system he created. In 1924, he was appointed trainer for the British Olympic Games team in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Unlike other Joint members, Ann Relwyskow did not sell her share on to Max Crabtree in 1986 but remained independent as part of Joint until her retirement in 1994, contributing her own matches to ITV's coverage as well as two later TV tapings broadcast regionally on STV and Grampian TV in 1990 and 1993.

Publications The Art of Wrestling Gale & Polden, London (1919) My Simple Way to Health (1924) The Art of Wrestling Naval and Military Press, (2017)