As we gear up for the 2012 Olympics, a great national event, let us not forget the contribution made by Scots to the Olympic Hall of Fame over the years.

Right back in 1900, Walter Mathers Rutherford (born 5th May 1870) was a British golfer who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics. He was born in Newlands, Scottish Borders, Scotland. He won the silver medal in the men's competition with a score of 168 over 36 holes.

Wyndham Halswelle (right) (30th May 1882 - 31st March 1915) was a Scottish athlete, winner of the controversial 400 metre race at the 1908 Summer Olympics, becoming the only athlete to win an Olympic title by a walkover. However, he won the silver in the 1904 Olympics by pure merit alone.

So it can be seen that right from the inception of the modern Olympics that Scots were very much involved. It must be mentioned that in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics the Scottish competitors including Henry Macintosh, Angus Gillan, William Kinnear, Robert Murray, George Cornet, and Isabella Moore, each picked up a gold medal.  This was an outstanding achievement for such a small country as Scotland.

During  the summer of 1924, the Olympics were hosted by the city of Paris. Eric Liddell (below right), a committed Christian, refused to run on Sunday. It meant that he had to withdraw from the 100 metres race, his best event.  Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, an event in which he had previously excelled. Even so, his success in the 400 metres was largely unexpected.

The day of the 400 metres race arrived.  As Liddell went to the starting blocks, an American masseur slipped a piece of paper into Liddell's hand with a quotation from 1 Samuel 2:30, "Those who honour me I will honour." Liddell ran with that piece of paper in his hand. He not only won the race, but broke the existing world record with a time of 47.6 seconds. A few days earlier Liddell had competed in the 200 metre finals, for which he received the bronze medal behind Americans Jackson Scholz and Charles Paddock, beating Harold Abrahams, who finished in sixth place. His performance in the 400 metres in Paris remained a world record for four years, and a European record for twelve years, until it was beaten by British athlete, Godfrey Brown, at the Berlin Olympics. Eric Liddell is the athlete made famous in the film 'Chariots of Fire.'

Scots athletes won in a range of sports over the next few Olympics, including boxing, swimming, yachting and showjumping.  Coming forward to the mid 70's we find David Andrew Wilkie MBE (right) (born 8th March 1954), a Scottish former swimmer, who was Olympic and Commonwealth Games champion in the 1970's.  

He won a silver in the 200 metres breaststroke at the Munich Olympics in 1972. He then went on to win a gold in the 200 metres breaststroke in record time and a silver medal in the 100 metres breaststroke at  the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Wilkie continues to be involved in the world of swimming and promotion of swimming materials. He is a member of the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.

Alan Wells (below) was born in Edinburgh.  He was initially a triple jumper and long jumper before he started to concentrate on the sprint events in the early 1970's. Wells succeeded in winning the 100 metres gold and 200 metres silver at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Following the Moscow Olympics there was a general feeling that Well's gold medal had been devalued by the boycott of the games by several major athletic nations, the USA in particular. However, he silenced many of the doubters by subsequently beating the Americans that came over for the remainder of the European athletics season. Watch Allan Wells win his gold medal in the video below.

Cameron Sharp (right) (born 3rd June 1958) is a former Scottish sprinter born in Ayrshire, Scotland. He won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton in the 4 x 100 metres relay alongside David Jenkins, Allan Wells, and Andrew McMaster in 1978.  He went on to compete at the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow in the 100 metres and 200 metres where he reached the semi finals of both sprints. He was also a member of the 4 x 100 metres relay team where the British sprinters finished 4th in the final in a new British record.

Sharp proceeded to win the silver medal in the 200 metres at the European Championships in Athens in 1982, narrowly losing the gold to East German sprinter Olaf Prentzler.  He next competed in the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games where he picked up 3 bronze medals in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and the 4x100 metres relay.  He competed in his 3rd Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986, where he won a bronze medal with the sprint relay team.

Liz McColgan (née Lynch) (right, green top) (born 24th March 1964) is a former Scottish long distance track and road running athlete. She won the gold in the 1991  World Championships in Tokyo, Japan at 10,000 metres, and was  voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. She won a gold medal in the 1986 Commonwealth Games, and a silver medal in the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

McColgan won the inaugural World Half Marathon Championships in 1992, where she also helped the British team claim the silver medal in the team competition.  McColgan won the London Marathon with a time of 2 hours, 27 minutes and 54 seconds in 1996.

Yvonne Murray (above right, red top) is a Scottish former middle distance track and road running athlete. She won a bronze medal in the 3,000 metres in the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

She won an excellent victory at a Grand prix in the 3,000 metres in 1989, before winning the 10,000 metres gold at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada.  Murray travelled to Split, a city in Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, in 1990 where she won a gold medal in the European Championships for the 3,000 metres. She was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall Of Fame on 12th March 2007.

The Great Britain curling team (right) won the gold medal at the Winter Olympic games at Salt Lake City in 2002.  The all-Scots team, led by skipper Rhona Martin, defeated Switzerland in a thrilling final.  It was Great Britain's first Winter Games gold medals since the ice-dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984. 

The team consisted of Rhona Martin, Fiona MacDonald, Margaret Morton, Janice Rankin and Debbie Knox. The team clinched the title and a place in history with the last stone of the final end. Martin had placed the team into a narrow 2-1 lead at the close of the fifth end with a double, after successfully taking out a Swiss counting stone.

Ian David Stark (born February 22, 1954) is a Scottish equestrian born in Galashiels in the Borders in 1954. He began riding horses at the age of 10. Stark won a silver medal for eventing in the Olympic Games at Los Angeles in 1984. He won a silver team medal for eventing in the Olympic Games held in Sydney, Australia in 2002.