Brian Hewson
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| Medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Competitor for  United Kingdom |
|||
| Men’s Athletics | |||
| European Championships | |||
| Gold | Stockholm 1958 | 1500 metres | |
| Commonwealth Games | |||
| Silver | Vancouver 1954 | 880 yards | |
| Silver | Cardiff 1958 | 880 yards | |
Brian Stanford Hewson (born April 4, 1933 in Croydon, Surrey) is a retired track and field athlete, who represented Great Britain at two consecutive Summer Olympics (1956 and 1960) in the men's 800 metres. He won the gold medal in the men's 1.500 metres at the 1958 European Championships in Stockholm, Sweden.
Hewson first came to prominence at the age of only 20, when he won the national AAA 880yd championship in 1min 54.2sec. He successfully defended this title the following year and was selected to compete for England in the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver. At the Games, England made a clean sweep of the medals in the 880yd, with Hewson finishing second behind Derek Johnson and Ian Boyd placing third.
Later that year in the European Championships in Berne, Hewson won his heat of the 800 m in 1:50.2, but missed the final as he received a bump in his semi-final and finished only sixth. In 1955 Hewson began to train under Franz Stampfl and soon after started running world-class times for the mile. Before May 28, 1955 only two men (Roger Bannister and John Landy) had run a mile in less than four minutes.
On that date however, at the British Games meeting in London, three more men added their names to this list when Laszlo Tabori (Hungary) won in 3:59.0 from Chris Chataway (Great Britain) and Hewson (3:59.8) third. Hewson had led through the 1500 m mark in 3:43.2, only 1.0 sec slower than Bannister's UK record for that distance. Later that year in July, Hewson won his first AAA 1 mile title in 4:05.4 running the last lap in 53.5.
In the men's 1500 metres final at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne Hewson made a sprint for the finish with 300 m remaining and quickly opened up a gap on the field. He held this lead into the straight but was then quickly passed by the eventual winner Ron Delaney of Ireland, and he faded to finish fifth.
