Lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Sir James Stuart Coats, 3rd Baronet MC (13 April 1894 – 26 October 1966) was a British skeleton racer who competed in the late 1940s. He finished seventh in the men's skeleton event at the

1948 Winter Olympics The 1948 Winter Olympics, officially known as the V Olympic Winter Games (german: V. Olympische Winterspiele; french: Ves Jeux olympiques d'hiver; it, V Giochi olimpici invernali; rm, V Gieus olimpics d'enviern) and commonly known as St. Moritz ...

in St. Moritz. He served as President of the

St. Moritz Tobogganing Club The Cresta Run is a natural ice skeleton racing toboggan track in eastern Switzerland. Located in the winter sports town of St. Moritz, the run is one of the few in the world dedicated entirely to skeleton. It was built in 1884 near the ha ...

from 1954 to 1956. Coats was awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

in 1918. Coats was a retired

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

at the time of the 1948 Winter Olympics. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he commanded the

Coats Mission The Coats Mission was a special British army unit established in England in 1940 for the purpose of evacuating King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and their immediate family in the event of a German invasion of Britain during the Second World War. I ...

charged with evacuating the royal family in the result of a German invasion.

References

1948 men's skeleton resultsBBC.co.uk factoid featuring Coates prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics.
*Gibbs, Roger (1985). ''The Cresta Run 1885-1985''. London: Henry Melland Limited. *Wallechinsky, David (1984). "Skeleton (Cresta Run)". In ''The Complete Book of the Olympics: 1896 – 1980''. New York: Penguin Books. p. 577.

1894 births 1966 deaths Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Coldstream Guards officers Recipients of the Military Cross British male skeleton racers Skeleton racers at the 1948 Winter Olympics Olympic skeleton racers of Great Britain Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom British Army personnel of World War II Place of birth missing Place of death missing {{Skeleton-bio-stub