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Talk:Thorvald Ellegaard

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Tragedy in Sydney NSW Australia

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The 1905 Sydney Thousand was marred by a personal tragedy. One of the three favourites in the event (with MacFarland and Lawson) was the Danish cyclist Thorwald Ellegaard. He came to Australia with his wife and baby son Victor, and the three of them moved into the Adelaide Hotel in Moore Park Road (now called the Olympic Hotel) so Ellegaard could be near the SCG. On the morning of 3 January 1905, Mrs Ellegaard was bathing the little boy in a bathroom upstairs and left him for a moment to fetch a sponge. When she came back she found that Victor, who was 22 months old, had climbed onto a chair and was leaning out of the window. Before she could get to him the boy fell out onto the footpath, 7 metres below, suffering head injuries from which he died that afternoon. For Ellegaard, the death of his only child was, as the Sydney Morning Herald said, a 'severe blow' but he stayed on to race in Sydney and two months later finished third in the Sydney Thousand. MacFarland and Lawson were again unplaced. Source from Phillip Derriman, The Grand Old Ground, A history of the Sydney Cricket Ground 1943 2406:3400:217:D230:19DC:6414:6FDB:179 (talk) 10:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]