[4] Abrahams's father, Isaac, was a Jewish immigrant from Polish Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire since the Partitions of Poland.

His middle brother was another British Olympic athlete, long jumper Sir Sidney Abrahams (1885–1957).

[12] After graduating from Cambridge, he employed Sam Mussabini, a professional coach, who improved his style and training techniques in preparation for the 1924 Olympics in Paris, France.

[14] At the 1924 Summer Games, Abrahams won the 100 m in a time of 10.6 seconds, beating all the American favourites, including the 1920 gold-medal winner Charley Paddock.

Teammate Eric Liddell, the British 100-yard dash record holder at that time, declined to compete in the Paris 100 m because one of the heats for the event was held on a Sunday.

In 1936, when the Amateur Athletic Union considered a boycott of Hitler's Olympics, Abrahams successfully led the fight against doing so.

"[15][16][17] He went on to report from the 1936 Berlin Olympics for the BBC, exuberantly covering Jack Lovelock's win in the 1500 metres: “A hundred yards to go!

He was buried in the same grave as his wife Sybil Evers, in St John the Baptist churchyard in Great Amwell, Hertfordshire.

[20] In early 1934, he met D'Oyly Carte Opera Company singer Sybil Evers, and they began a passionate on-and-off romance.

[21] 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,[22] and the couple wed in December 1936.

[27] During the Nazi regime and war, the couple also fostered two Jewish refugees: a German boy called "Ken Gardner" (born Kurt Katzenstein),[28] and an Austrian girl named Minka.

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 School of Singing and Dramatic Art,[30][31] 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.

[35] In July 2012, plans were announced to erect a memorial to Abrahams in Telford, Shropshire, to recognise that before the 1924 Olympics he won a gold medal in the 100-yard sprint at the Midlands Area AAA championships at St George's Recreation Club ground.

[36] The memorial, in the form of a plaque, was unveiled by Sue Pottle in October 2014 in the lounge of the club, which now possesses the medal he won at the event.

[37] Norris McWhirter once commented that Abrahams "managed by sheer force of personality and with very few allies to raise athletics from a minor to a major national sport".

He was in their class, not only because of natural gifts – his magnificent physique, his splendid racing temperament, his flair for the big occasion – but because he understood athletics and had given more brainpower and more will power to the subject than any other runner of his day.