Karl Magnus WEGELIUS

Born to a wealthy family, Magnus Wegelius was an all-around athlete who did gymnastics, track & field athletics and sport shooting. As a gymnast, Wegelius was on the national team that won bronze in the team all-around at the 1908 Olympics. As a track & field athlete, he won Finnish titles in standing high jump in 1909, the 4x100 m relay in 1910 and medley relay in 1910. He also won bronze in the 400 metres at the 1911 Finnish Championships. In shooting, Wegelius competed at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, winning a silver in the team running target single shot and a bronze in team running target double shot, and team military rifle prone, all in 1920, adding a team trap bronze medal in 1924. Wegelius was also the Finnish champion in individual running target single shot in 1914, 1921-22, and 1926-28 and was the treasurer and vice-president of the Finnish Sport Shooting Federation from 1918-27. Outside of sports, Wegelius, who graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology with an engineering degree in 1909, worked as production director of SOK Corporation (now S-Group), a large Finnish retailing conglomerate. Wegelius died in the crash of a KLM airliner taking off from Croydon Airport in South London, the flight bound for Amsterdam. Fifteen of the seventeen passengers and crew were killed in the crash. The flight took off in heavy fog and crashed into the chimney of a house shortly after becoming airborne. Also onboard the flight, and dying in the crash, was Arvid Lindman, a former Prime Minister of Sweden from 1906-11 and 1928-30.