David TURQUAND YOUNG

Being a modern pentathlete in itself requires good all-round sporting skills, but for David Turquand-Brown he went even further and was a good golfer, cricketer, and yachtsman. Turquand-Brown was educated at Wellington School in Somerset before attending the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Whilst a cadet there, he finished second in the 1924 Amateur British Pentathlon Championship, which served as an Olympic trial, and he was selected for the Paris Games. Four years later he won the Championship, as the only civilian in the field, to qualify for his second Olympics.

Despite his two Olympic appearances, it was as a rugby player that Turquand-Brown was best known. After leaving Sandhurst, he joined the Royal Tank Corps and continued to play rugby, representing The Army, Hampshire, London, and the Barbarians, and in January 1928, he won the first of five England international caps in an 18-11 win over a New South Wales XV (representing Australia) at Twickenham. He later went on to captain Richmond, where one of his team-mates was fellow Olympian Lance East.