text: The Bedford school Alastair Cook and many other sporting greats attended - Bedfordshire Live
  The school has produced six Olympic gold medallists and a host of rugby stars
  Updated 09:08, 19 APR 2021
  Most of us know one or two famous people who passed through our school, but one school in Bedford has more than most.
  Bedford School has produced six gold medal Olympians, a host of international rugby stars, an England cricket captain and plenty of Victoria Cross recipients.
  The school has a history of fostering sporting stars stretching back to the 1924 Olympics when Harold Abrahams became a 100 metres champion and Jack Beresford won his first Olympic rowing medals.
  Abrahams' story later became famous when his life was depicted in Chariots of Fire.
  But since their triumphs, many more athletes grew up in their halls, including 23 rugby internationals.
  Harold Abrahams was born in Bedford in 1899, and he became a keen runner and long-jumper at Bedford School and Repton School.
  After developing as an athlete at Cambridge University, he attended the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium, but he was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the 100m and 200m and finished 20th in the long jump.
  In the build up to the 1924 games, he employed a professional coach, Sam Mussabini, to improve his technique.
  The hard work paid off. In Paris, in 1924, he won the 100 metres in a time of 10.6 seconds, beating American favourites for the medal.
  Jack Beresford was a contemporary of Abraham's at Bedford School, where he studied from 1913 to 1917, and captained the rugby team.
  He signed up for the Army in 1917 and wounded his leg while serving.
  The injury hit his chances as a rugby player so he focused on rowing, or 'sculling', in which he also excelled.
  He won his first medal at the Antwerp games in 1920, taking second place in the single sculls.
  In 1924, he joined Abrahams as a gold medal winner in the single sculls.
  He earned a second silver medal in 1928, before achieving his second and third golds in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics.
  The school also produced Martin Bayfield, the 6 ft 10 lock forward who represented England and the British Lions in the 1990s.
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  Bayfield partnered World Cup-winning captain Martin Johnson 18 times and he also joined the 1993 British Lions tour to New Zealand.
  After retiring, Bayfield put his towering frame to good use as a body stunt double to Robbie Coltrane in the Harry Potter films, playing the half-giant Hagrid.
  He now presents Aviva Premiership games on BT sport.
  Cook joined Bedford School at 13 and initially focused on music, as he played clarinet, saxophone and piano.
  But he moved towards sport and the cricket team. In his time at the school, he hit 17 centuries and he began appearing for Essex County Cricket team in 2003, shortly after leaving school.
  In 2006, Cook earned his first England cap, making a test debut against India.
  He went on to pay a pivotal role in the 2009 Ashes triumph. In 2012, he became England captain and by the end of his career in 2016, he had become the fifth highest Test run scorer of all time.
  Almost 100 years since Jack Beresford left the school Bedford boys have continued to find success in Olympic rowing.
  The most recent Olympic champion is Phelan Hill, a coxswain who attended the school from 1987 to 1997.
  A cox is responsible for steering rowing boats and directing the strokes of teammates.
  Hill helped his school team to a gold medal in the National School Championships and went on to enjoy success with the Great Britain Men's Eights.
  Hill won 11 World Cup medals as a cox and, at the London Olympic Games, he won a bronze medal with the men's British rowing squad.