Robert “Scotty” Rankine

Robert “Scotty” Rankine, born in Scotland in 1909, came to Canada in 1926 and to Preston in 1929. A distinguished racer, for his accomplishments from 1930 to 1953 he was acknowledged in Canada and elsewhere as one of the world’s best middle and long distance runners.

Rankine won every Canadian track championship for distance from three miles to the standard marathon of more than twenty-six miles, the Hamilton Bay race of nineteen miles on seven occasions, and the US championship for fifteen and twenty thousand meters in 1937. In the Boston Marathon he finished among the first six on several occasions. He ran for Canada in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1932, the 1936 games in Germany, the British Empire Games in England in 1934 and in Australia in 1938.

In 1935 he was voted Canada’s outstanding athlete and in 1970 was admitted to the Canadian Runners Hall of Fame.