Helmer MÖRNER

Helmer Count Mörner was an artillery lieutenant when he won individual and team eventing golds at Antwerpen in 1920. He was supposed to compete on a Russian horse, but it suffered from a swollen leg shortly before the competition, so he mounted his substitute horse Germania, although for the Olympic Games Germania was renamed Geria, in order not to insult the victorious powers shortly after the end of World War I. Mörner’s own Memories of an Olympic Journey were later published.

In 1914, when he was 19-years-old, Count Mörner joined the army with the Wendish Artillery Regiment or A3 in Kristianstad and stayed with them for 33 years. In 1947 he moved to Uppsala and became academic equerry at the university. Since there were no descendants, after his death his gold medals returned to his old garrison in Kristianstad.