Jack Vard

The Vardovich family left Bialystok in what was to become Northern Poland for London after a series of anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1870s. However, they did not stay in England and instead moved to the Irish capital of Dublin and changed the family name to Vard.

Jack Vard first came to prominence as a chess prodigy when, as a 12-year-old, he recorded a draw with Aleksandr Alekhine when Alekhine was in between his reigns as world champion. Vard was not to continue his career in chess but took up both rugby and freestyle wrestling. He played top level rugby as a winger and was multiple times Irish champion as a wrestler. He was twice British champion in 1949 and 1951. Chosen for the Irish team for Helsinki, he lost both his Olympic bouts although it should be pointed out that his defeats came against past and future medallists.

Whilst still competing, he moved into sport administration and reports claim that he was instrumental in ensuring that the Irish Olympic Committee selected and paid for Ronnie Delany to participate in the 1956 Olympics.

His links with the Olympic Games continued for decades. As well as being elected to the Irish Olympic Committee, he was manager and coach to the Irish wrestling team in Rome in 1960, the women’s clothing company he founded with his brothers in 1946 were to provide the official uniform for female team members and, when he retired from the family firm, he bought a farm in the south of County Dublin, where he became a successful horse breeder and owner, producing a number of horses that competed at the top level in show-jumping including for the Irish Olympic team