Lightbody, Jim

Jim Lightbody, byname of James Davies Lightbody, (born March 15, 1882, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.—died March 2, 1953, Charleston, S.C.), American athlete, a preeminent middle-distance runner of the early 20th century. At the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis he won four medals, including three gold medals, and he added two more medals in the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens.

Lightbody attended the University of Chicago and competed for the Chicago Athletic Association. At the 1904 Olympics he put on a burst of speed in the homestretches of each of his individual races to pass his competitors and win. The steeplechase race in that Olympics was 2,590 m long and included hurdles and a long water jump on each lap; Lightbody, who had never competed in a steeplechase event before, beat the favoured runner to achieve his first Olympic victory. Three days later, again an underdog, Lightbody won the 800-metre run. Also at the 1904 Games he set a world record (4 min 5.4 sec) while winning the 1,500-metre race and ran on the Chicago Athletic Association team that won a silver medal for the United States in the four-mile cross-country team race.

Lightbody won national Amateur Athletic Union victories in the half-mile and mile races in 1905. At the Intercalated Games in Athens in 1906, he won a gold medal in the 1,500-metre race. In the same games, his American teammate Paul Pilgrim defeated him in a close race in the 800-metre run, leaving Lightbody with a silver medal.