As the Paris Olympic Games creep ever closer, the Australian Olympic Committee has honoured one of Australia’s most important Olympic figures at a special ceremony in northern France.

There are few places on earth where the past is so obviously intertwined with the present as Paris.

And with the Games returning to the city of light for the first time since 1924, it’s only natural to look back on some of the greats of the past and their awesome athletic achievements.

Not all of history is so cheery and worth celebrating though.

ABC Sport will be live blogging every day of the Paris Olympics from July 27

Far from the lights and bustle of Paris in the northern French countryside lie fields of sombre white headstones, symbolising the heartbreaking sacrifice made by far too many during World War I. 

In the decade prior to the 1924 Games, Europe was plunged into a war from which nobody was immune.

Millions died in the bloody killing fields of northern France — including Australian legend, Cecil Healy.

It was he who the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) honoured by laying a wreath on his grave.

Healy first featured at the Intercalated Games of 1906, winning a bronze in the 100m freestyle in Athens with his innovative new crawl technique, an improvement on that first pioneered by Dick Cavill at the turn of the 20th century.

After missing the 1908 Games due to funding issues — the Amateur Athletic Union of Australasian decided to accredit individuals able to pay their own way to London as it did not have the money to finance a team — he returned to the Olympic sphere in Stockholm in 1912, when an act of sportsmanship ensured he would go down in history.

Healy, who won gold in the 4x200m relay alongside Harold Hardwick, Les Boardman and New Zealander Malcolm Champion in the Australasia team, won the first semifinal of the 100m freestyle to qualify for the final.

However, missing from the start of the second semifinal were the three Americans, including legendary Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku — he of pioneering surfing fame — after they missed the race on account of an apparent error from their team manager.

Given the make up of the final — fellow Australian Billy Longworth, who despite being Australasian champion in the event, was severely hampered by a bad ear infection from swimming in the icy waters of the Djurgårdsbrunnsviken bay and was going to pull out, plus Germans Walter Ramme and Kurt Bretting — Healy was odds on to win gold.

However, he felt that any gold medal won without the Americans — particularly Kahanamoku, who set the Olympic Record in the heats — would be a hollow victory.

According to contemporary newspaper, Lone Hand, the 30-year-old Australian felt that it would have been “unsportsmanlike to bar their entry” and insisted that they be allowed to swim a separate semifinal in order to qualify based on time.

Officials eventually let the Americans swim, with an inspired Kahanamoku breaking the world record to qualify alongside Ken Huszagh for the final.

In the end, Kahanamoku won the first of his two Olympic gold medals in the event — he also won in Antwerp after WWI and came second at Paris 1924 — with Healy winning silver.

Following the swim, Kahanamoku went across to Healy and held his arm in the air in recognition of his role in getting him to the final.

“This incident is typical of Healy’s chivalry to his opponents on all occasions,” the Lone Hand wrote.

The memory of that moment lives on, with the AOC creating an award in 2018 “for Olympians who display exceptional sportsmanship and exemplify the Olympic values”.

AOC president John Coates said, when the award was announced, that Healy helped define the Olympic spirit.

“We believe as Australians there’s a great benefit in understanding and celebrating the values that Cecil held that led to that incredible gesture in 1912,” Coates said.

Decathlete Cedric Dubler was the first and, so far, only Australian to be recognised with the award after the Queenslander urged on teammate Ash Moloney in the closing stages of the 1,500 metres to help him claim bronze.

“Cecil Healy would have approved,” Coates said. 

“In the closing stages, Cedric had no other thought, other than the possibility for his teammate winning an Olympic medal. 

“He could have easily chosen to improve his own standing in the event, but he made another choice and it was a noble one.”

Fair play may have defined Healy’s sporting career, but his life ended as unfairly as it comes.

Healy joined up to fight in the World War I alongside several of his contemporaries, including Harwick, Frank Beaurepaire, Longworth, Ivan Stedman, Albert Barry, Tom Adrian, Sid Middleton, Tom Richards and Nick Winter.

Stedman, Barry and Adrian all suffered life-changing injuries in the war, though Beaurepaire, despite being gassed, went on to win silver and bronze medals at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics before setting up his eponymous tyre business and becoming twice-elected mayor of Melbourne.

Winter, meanwhile, went on to win Olympic gold in the triple jump in Paris in 1924 — one of the three boys from Manly who claimed gold at that Games alongside diver Dick Eve and swimmer Andrew “Boy” Charlton.

Healy, meanwhile, was killed in the mud-choked hell that was the Battle of the Somme in 1918, falling just 73 days before the end of the war.

He remains the only Australian Olympic gold medallist to be killed in action.

His grave, at The Assevillers New British Cemetery, 120km north of Paris, was the focus for a ceremony involving members of the AOC, who left a wreath at the grave alongside the mayor of Assevillers, Didier Jacob, Australian MP Patrick Gorman, and ambassador to France, Gillian Bird.

Kaarle McCulloch, Australia’s deputy Chef de Mission and a two-time Olympian, laid the wreath on Healy’s grave.

“Cecil Healy’s memory is a powerful presence in the village of Assevillers — they have embraced his memory and his achievements,” McCulloch said.

“What stands out is his leadership, his bravery and his sportsmanship. And of course, he was such a wonderful athlete. Accounts of his life paint a vivid picture of a great Australian who lived his Olympic values.