The Kiwi Olympic father

The modern Olympic movement officially started in 1894 with the founding of the International Olympic Committee and a Kiwi was one of 13 who started it.
Leonard Albert Cuff was born in Christchurch on March 28, 1866, to Albert and Ellen Cuff.
From the start he was a sportsman, excelling in athletics and cricket, captaining the first New Zealand cricket team while he played for both Auckland and Canterbury.
At the same time he also played rugby for Canterbury.
In 1887, he became a founder and secretary of the New Zealand Amateur Athletics Association.
Cuff won the New Zealand long jump title in 1889, 1896 and 1897 then led the five man team that went to England and Paris in 1892, where he also won a silver medal at the hurdles in an international event.
He then became a member of the New Zealand Cricket Council.
Along with all those sports he loved and was good at golf and also lawn bowls.
He was the New Zealand representative at the conference in Sydney in 1897 when the Australian Amateur Athletic Union was formed.
And all of this was before he moved to Tasmania in 1899 where he continued to play cricket where his best season was 1100 runs with an average of 77 as well as founding the Northern Tasmanian Golf Association and the Golf council.
He even won the Tasmanian open golf championship.
Cuff however also worked in insurance and showed his other talents, working out and laying out five golf courses.
It had been his job - managing the Phoenix Assurance Co in Launceston in Tasmania, that led him to move.
He later also managed the Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation for Tasmania.
He took over the management of W. T. Bell and Co. in 1916, and continued to control the two insurance companies.
He retired from W. T. Bell and Co. to take over the management of the Commercial Assurance Co. for Northern Tasmania and of the Ocean Corporation for Tasmania.
Along with all that he was a founding member of the Launceston Rotary club and honorary treasurer of the St John’s Ambulance Association.
He married Ella Kathleen Maddox in Launceston, in 1901, and had one daughter and two sons.
Cuff, however, is most remembered as one of the fathers of the modern Olympic movement, signing as the 12th member of the Founding Members of the International Olympic Committee that brings us the Olympic Games every four years.
He died in Australia on October 9, 1954, and was cremated at the Carr Villa Memorial Park in Tasmania.
A Leonard Cuff medal for contributions was established but later discontinued.