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Billy McMahon (athlete)

American long-distance runner

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ21604945 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Francis McMahon (January 3, 1910 – February 26, 1991) was an American long-distance runner. He won the national marathon championship in 1936 and qualified for the Olympic marathon in Berlin, where he failed to finish.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Billy McMahon (athlete)” is american long-distance runner. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Billy, McMahon and athlete, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1910, 1991, 1936—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1910-01-03. For this dossier, Billy, McMahon and athlete is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american long-distance runner” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21604945. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1991 and 1936.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Billy McMahon (athlete)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Billy McMahon (athlete) primary sources, Billy McMahon (athlete) archive and Billy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Billy McMahon (athlete)”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Billy McMahon (athlete)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.