Editing Harold Abrahams (section)

==Personal life==
While at Cambridge, Abrahams was romantically involved with academic Christina McLeod Innes, and they became informally engaged, but their relationship waned and ended as Abrahams began focusing exclusively on his athletics and the Olympics.<ref>Ryan, pp. 53–73.</ref> In early 1934, he met [[D'Oyly Carte Opera Company]] singer [[Sybil Evers]], and they began a passionate on-and-off romance.<ref>Ryan, pp. 188–197, 207–220, 234–235.</ref> According to his biographer Mark Ryan, Abrahams had a fear of commitment and old-fashioned ideas about the role of women in marriage, but he was able to overcome these,<ref>Ryan, pp. 191–215, 234–235.</ref> and the couple wed in December 1936.<ref>Ryan, pp. 235–236.</ref> In the film ''[[Chariots of Fire]]'', Abrahams is instead depicted as dating D'Oyly Carte soprano [[Sybil Gordon]] (portrayed by [[Alice Krige]]), and the film portrays the couple as meeting a decade earlier than he and Evers actually did.

Abrahams cut a strip of gold off his Olympic medal to make the bridal wedding ring. Both the medal and the ring (following Sybil's death) were later stolen, on separate occasions.<ref>{{cite news |title=Area part of a legendary time |work=Shropshire Star |date=3 November 2014 |page=8}} Report by Shirley Tart, based on interview with Sue Pottle.</ref>

Sybil Evers could not have children, so they adopted an eight-week-old boy, Alan, in 1942,<ref>Ryan, p. 245.</ref> and a nearly three-year-old girl, Susan, in 1946;<ref>Ryan, p. 249.</ref> Susan ("Sue") later married the formerly imprisoned anti-nuclear activist [[Pat Pottle]], with whom she had two sons.<ref name="Oxbury">Oxbury, Harold (1985). [https://books.google.com/books?id=Yfi0AAAAIAAJ&q=%22they+had+one+adopted+son+and+one+adopted%22&dq=%22they+had+one+adopted+son+and+one+adopted%22 ''Great Britons: Twentieth-Century Lives''], Oxford University Press, p. 2. {{ISBN|0192115995}}.</ref>

During the Nazi regime and war, the couple also fostered two Jewish refugees: a German boy called "Ken Gardner" (born Kurt Katzenstein),<ref>Ryan, p. 238.</ref> and an Austrian girl named Minka.<ref>Ryan, p. 241.</ref>

Sybil Evers died in 1963 at the age of 59. Abrahams set up two awards in her name: the Sybil Evers Memorial Prize for Singing (1965–1995), an annual cash prize awarded to the best female singer in her last year at the [[Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art|Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art]],<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110718030312/http://www.charities-database.co.uk/312837.html Sybil Evers Memorial Prize for Singing]</ref><ref>Ryan, pp. 323–324.</ref> and the Sybil Abrahams Memorial Trophy, presented each year from 1964 onward at [[Buckingham Palace]] by the [[Duke of Edinburgh]], President of the [[British Amateur Athletics Association]], to the best British woman athlete.<ref>Ryan, p. 323.</ref>

Abrahams was active in [[freemasonry]].<ref>
{{cite news
|url= http://freemasonry.london.museum/it/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Sportsmen-in-English-Lodges-Jan-2015.pdf
|title= Sportsmen in English Lodges
|date= January 2015
|work= The Library and Museum of Freemasonry
}}</ref> He was a fan of [[Gilbert and Sullivan]], which was portrayed in ''[[Chariots of Fire]]''.<ref>
{{cite news
|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/20/movies/a-study-of-ambition-and-morality-to-open-the-film-festival-1924.html
|title= A Study of Ambition and Morality to open the film festival 1924
|date= 20 September 1981
|author= Malcolm Moran
|work= The New York Times
|page= 1, Arts and Leisure
}}</ref>