Career
In the early 1900s (decade), Billy Sherring from Hamilton, Ontario was acknowledged to be a world class marathoner. In 1906, Sherring – an athlete of Saint Patrick"s Athletic Club – was chosen to represent Canada in the Athens Olympic Games. However, it was left up to him, a working man with meager resources (he was a brakeman at the Grand Trunk Railway), to finance his journey to Athens.
He arrived to Athens seven weeks before the Olympic Games and started to work as a porter at the Athens railway station.
At the marathon race, the 45 kg (99 lb) Sherring led almost all the distance. Prince George of Greece ran the last 50 metres of the marathon alongside Sherring.
Sherring received a live lamb and a statue of Athena as a reward. When he returned to Canada, Hamilton City Council awarded him $5000 and the City of Toronto awarded him a further $400.
Upon his triumphant return from the marathon, Sherring quit athletics and worked as a customs officer in Hamilton until his retirement in 1942.
After his death, his original claim-to-fame, the Around the Bay Road Race was renamed to the Billy Sherring Memorial Road Race, and Hamilton has since built a Billy Sherring Park to commemorate their most famous athlete. Sherring is thought he might have inspired the founders of Panathinaikos to adopt the shamrock as the Greek multi-sport club"s official emblem.