For me the story started in 2010, when Richard Robinson - a colleague of mine who works for an advertising company - began researching the Olympic Games for one of his clients. He's a very good family friend and one day I got an unexpected telephone call from him: 'What do you know about thirteen Olympic Gold Medals that were awarded in Chamonix by Barron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic games, to the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition?' Despite forging a career as an Everest guide, and having previously lived in Chamonix for a number of years, I had to plead my ignorance of this historical event. And so Rich filled me in on the unique story:
In 1924 Baron Coubertin awarded Olympic Gold Medals to the 1922 British expedition for their outstanding feats on the slopes of Mount Everest. Although the expedition wasn't successful in reaching the summit, it had smashed all sorts of records: they were the first team to set out specifically to climb Everest; the first team to climb above 8000 metres; the first team to use supplementary oxygen; and the first team to use down-filled clothing. Their achievements ran parallel to what Coubertin himself was thinking when he redesigned the Olympics in 1896. His ethos was 'higher, faster, stronger', and the higher wasn't the high jump or pole vault it was aeronautics and alpinism. He thought those two disciplines truly encompassed the spirit of the Olympics and so - looking across the fours years between games - if a mountaineering ascent in that time was judged worthy enough the team would be awarded a medal.
The interesting part of the whole story though was this. Lt. Col. Strutt - second in command of the 1922 British Everest Expedition - was presented the medals by Coubertin at the closing ceremony of the 1924 Chamonix Winter Olympics. Whilst receiving the team's Gold Medals, Strutt and Coubertin got chatting and struck up a pledge between themselves. Strutt promised on behalf of Great Britain, not just on the team but on heads of his entire country, that at the very next opportunity Britain would endeavour to put one of the Gold Medals on the summit of Mount Everest in celebration of Coubertin's recognition of their efforts to conquer 'the third pole'. That year, 1924, there was another expedition to Everest - the fateful one where Mallory and Irving disappeared – but no medals reached the top. Fast forwarding to the 1930s, these teams never quite achieved the same height records of their predecessors; they didn't summit. Then the war came along and the whole story had got lost in time.
As the years passed the thirteen Gold Medals disappeared into family attics and archives and, as we know, when the successful ascent of Everest finally came in 1953 none of these medals went with Hillary and Norgay to the top. The pledge had become all but forgotten.
Jumping quickly from the past to the present day, 2012 was obviously going to be an amazing year for Britain and its athletes, but I was slightly dismayed that my beloved sports mountaineering and climbing were not represented in the Olympics any longer. This 90-year-old story seemed to me to be a great opportunity to celebrate mountaineering in the Olympic year. So myself and Rich Robinson and myself started researching the whole story. Could we find a Gold Medal? And if we could find a medal, could we take it to the top of Everest and fulfil the pledge?