July 20, 2024 • 21 mins
This 2012 episode from prior hosts Sarah and Deblina explains how the 1900 Paris Olympics are considered some of the strangest. Many of the events were so under-promoted, the athletes competing in them didn't know they were even in the Olympics.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday. One of our episodes this week is going
to describe a number of things that happened at the
nineteen hundred Olympic Games. Prior hosts Sarah and Doblina did
a whole episode just on these games on July twenty fifth,
twenty twelve, so that's today's Saturday Classic. A little bit
of the general history of the nineteen hundred Games also
(00:24):
came up in our previous.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Episode on Pierre de Kuberptin and the Modern Olympic Games,
which we already ran as a Saturday Classic in November
of twenty twenty. Today's Classic has a little bit about
him as well. So all of these episodes kind of
knit together with one another, So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff
you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Hello, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Dablina Chockerboardy and today.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
The Olympic Games like such an institution that it's hard
to believe they almost didn't make it past their second
time out in nineteen hundred. But of course, then with
only one previous modern Olympics on the books, the Paris
Games just proved to be such a disaster and often
hilarious disasters. We're going to see that. It's pretty remarkable
that everyone agreed to give it another go four years
(01:21):
later in Saint Louis, and even the founder of the
modern Games himself, Pierre Baron de Coupetin, later said quote,
it's a miracle the Olympic movement survived these games.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
So we'll tell you just a few of the issues
as kind of a teaser here. For one thing, the
game stretched from May to October. I mean, can you
even imagine something like this no going on today. They
were so poorly organized as well and poorly promoted that
the athletes often didn't even realize they were competing in
the Olympics. And if you knew you were competing, it
(01:55):
wasn't because of the flashy venues and the high quality
equipment that you were working with. You were swimming in
the sun, you were competing in track and field events
throughout the woods and using old utility polls as hurdles.
So not exactly top of the line, not stuff going
on here.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So because of the odd circumstances that surround the nineteen
hundred Games, some sport historians don't even consider them Olympics
at all. They don't even consider them part of the
modern Olympic tradition, at least according to the Encyclopedia of
the Modern Olympic Movement. They're seen simply as sporting events
that were held as a side show for the Universal Exposition.
(02:34):
Still though, I mean, we're going to go ahead and
consider them real Olympics. And if we do that, the
Paris Games did include some pretty notable First one, it
was much larger than the first modern Games that had
been held in Athens, and the Paris Games attracted athletes
from more foreign nations than ever, so it was more
of an international event that the organizers were striving for.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
It also featured the first women competitors, which was significant,
and it helped set the precedent for rotating the Games
between cities. But to really understand the bizarre side show
that was the nineteen hundred Games, it helps to go
back a little bit. So we're gonna take you back
to some other Olympics, way back. The ancient Olympics may
(03:18):
have their roots in Greek myth, but the first official
games were actually held in seven seventy six BC, So
after trekking on for centuries with foot races, chariot competitions,
and wrestling matches to the death. The games were banned
in three ninety three a d by Christian Emperor Theodosius
due to their polytheistic roots, and the history of the
(03:38):
modern games might lead you to believe that there was
then a lull of more than fifteen hundred years with
no games at all, but that's actually not quite accurate.
Athletic competitions, both local and national, which build themselves the
Olympics and took at least some Hellenic inspiration, are documented
as far back as the Renaissance.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's a little known fact here. So we're just going
to give you some examples of these Olympic Games that
occurred in the meantime and some of the events they
featured too. Competitors in Robert Dover's Olympic Games, and that's
Olympic with a K added on. I really like that touch.
Those games started in sixteen twelve, and people would compete
(04:18):
in events based on their position in society, something that
seems pretty unusual, but maybe doesn't seem quite as strange
as if you look at it as a country fair,
that sort of thing. So gentry might compete in hunting
or even chess. Townspeople could wrestle or do something called
fighting at the barriers. Rural folk might participate in something
(04:40):
called cudgel play or shin kicking, tumbling, something called skittles,
or pipe and tabor music. So a varied repertoire of
activities for the rural folk.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Moving on to the nineteenth century, there was an explosion
in Olympic events. In the eighteen thirties. There were the
Olympic Games of ram Lursa with events like massed climbing,
and the much Winlock Olympian Games with sports like wheelbar racing,
plus some competition for the less athletically inclined, like a
(05:13):
knitting and a biblical history contest.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
There was also Evangelist Sappus Olympics in Greece, a pretty
famous one which was heavily influenced by ancient traditions. Still, though,
it took Pierre Baron de Couberton, an enthusiastic supporter of
physical education in general, to draw inspiration from these different
local Olympic traditions and push for an international game something
(05:38):
more like how we think of the Olympics today. So
Kubertant had become an ardent supporter of reviving the Olympics
since he met with Englishman doctor William Penny Brooks in
eighteen ninety and Brooks had started the much win Lock
Olympian Games forty years earlier, and he had also corresponded
for years with evangelist Zappas had sort of incorporated some
(06:00):
of those Greek traditions that were going on into his
own games. But since the eighteen sixties, Brooks had been
really interested in promoting the idea of an international Games.
The problem was he just couldn't get that much interest
for it.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
So after seeing the articles and ideas of the elderly Brooks,
coupertant took up the torch and went back to France
and pitched the idea himself at the Union d sport
Athletique in eighteen ninety two. He couched the event as
a diplomatic opportunity. He said, quote, let us export our oarsmen,
our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the
(06:36):
true free trade of the future, and the day it
is introduced into Europe, the cause of peace will have
received a new and strong ally.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Again. Though there just wasn't that much interest in this Coubertant, though,
was undeterred, and he tried to pitch his idea at
this Athletic Congress again in eighteen ninety four. This time
there was some success. He says that people probably just
went along with it for his benefit, but still they
went along with it, and Kubertant, being French, naturally suggested
(07:05):
that his hometown of Paris would be the perfect spot.
In nineteen hundred would be, you know, as a new century,
the perfect year to commence the modern Games after this
long lull.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Somehow, though both the date and the host city changed,
it was Athens that would host the inaugural games. Things
went well, both for Couberton and the new International Olympic Committee.
Though the Greek Prime Minister had initially refused to stage
the games, his successor was game to make this happen,
and the King of Greece opened the events on Greek
(07:46):
Independence Day in eighteen ninety six. There were athletes from
fourteen different countries international, just like they had hoped exactly.
The first medallist was American James Connolly, but the Greeks
took home their most COVID prize, first place in the marathon,
with more than one hundred thousand spectators showing up to
watch the race.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, due to the historical significance of the marathon, which
we've covered in an earlier episode on the Battle of Marathon,
you can understand why the Greeks really wanted that one.
Some of the events that these eighteen ninety six Olympics
sound a little bit risky today. For instance, Hungarian Alfred Hyos,
who won the one hundred meter and twelve hundred meter
swimming events, remembered being taken out to sea on a
(08:30):
boat and left to swim to shore. That was how
they were going to cover the long distance swimming, and
he said that quote his will to live completely overcame
his desire to win. I can understand that perspective too.
So even though there are some things that might seem
a little bit strange today, like that the first Olympics
were considered a success and the Greeks wanted to post
(08:52):
them permanently. They wanted to host the nineteen hundred Olympics
and on from there.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
The IOC, however, the Olympic Committee they preferred rotating, especially
since the Greek Turkish war made a second Athens game
seem a little less appealing. Plus Paris, even without Kuberton's
hometown Boosterism, was due to host the nineteen hundred Universal Exposition.
A great opportunity to kind of double up on major crowds.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
They're already, you've got the infrastructure. Seems like a perfect opportunity.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
To double being operative word there exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Really doubling up proved to be almost the undoing of
the Paris Games because it left no one definitively in charge.
Instead of being this special quadrennial celebration, the Olympics just
became a side show of the exposition, a fairground side show.
Part of the problem was that the French government was
already planning sporting expositions for the fair and remember this
(09:51):
is the early years of physical education, so it was
hoped that these public displays of sport, alongside other public
displays of indus and culture, would not only encourage folks
to get out there and move and exercise things we
might expect events like this to encourage today, but also
promote quote moral energy as well. According to the Encyclopedia
(10:13):
of the Modern Olympic Movement.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
But as the IOC lost control to the French government,
the difference between the Olympic sporting displays and the non
Olympic displays became very unclear. As we already mentioned, some
athletes didn't even know that they had participated in the Olympics.
Their confusion was heightened by a couple things. For one thing,
the vast number of Olympic events. According to Olympic dot Org,
(10:38):
there were ninety five events and nine hundred and ninety
seven competitors from twenty four different countries. Another problem was
the extreme under promotion. That telltale word Olympics wasn't used
on event programs, so even though there were scores of
visitors in Paris for the Universal Exposition, the Olympic displays
were sometimes poorly attended, both by the press and spectators.
(11:02):
The women's croquet match, for example, had only one person
in attendance, an Englishman who had traveled from Nice specifically
for this event.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
So I hope he enjoyed the show.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
At least he got a good seat.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I'm sure he did so. Many of the events also
seem pretty bizarre today, aside from the whole organizational issue.
Some of them, like archery or equestrian were new to
the Games at the time but are normal now. They
seem like Olympic staples. Others like gymnastics were simply a
lot different from what we know today. In nineteen hundred,
(11:36):
gymnasts had to complete sixteen different movements, including lifting a
fifty kilogram stone, climbing a rope, and pole vaulting. So
I'm imagining the little, tiny teenage Olympians doing the things
like the pole vaulting and the fifty kilogram stone.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Interesting, what's weirder as an event like say tug of
war at the Olympics. Incidentally, tug of war was one
of the five sports where people from several nationalities competed
on the same team too, so.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
More like a field day event.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, lots of strange stuff going on there, or strange
to us today. At least, swimming events included oddities like
an obstacle race where you would duck under boats. Doesn't
sound very safe.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah, but even traditional events got sort of an unusual
twist because of the venues that they were held in. So,
I mean, we all goggled at Beijing's stunning water cube
Aquatic Center during the two thousand and eight Games, but
competitors in the nineteen hundred Games had to do their
swimming competitions in the Seine, where currents would just create
(12:41):
these insane records. I mean, we were just talking about
the eighteen ninety six Games where you'd be towed out
to see, but swimming in a river wouldn't be much
easier either.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
No, it would not. And there was also the fencing,
which at one event pitted teachers against students, so that
was one thing, but it was also held at the
Universal Expositions cut area, so almost as if there was
some sort of early Olympic marketing.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Except we know that couldn't be it, because they didn't
market anything.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Just easier access to somebody's joke. I guess it just
seemed to make logical sense to put it there. Track
and field events were held on the grass center of
a horse track, where there were mounds and dips, and
the straightaway headed off into the woods and was uphill,
so spectators trying to see the finishes would stand up
(13:30):
and they would actually interfere with the runners. The hurdles,
as we mentioned, were old utility poles, and jumpers had
to dig their own pits, and discus and hammer throwers
frequently hit trees. But worse than that, the Hungarian medallist
Rudolph Bauer actually had throws enter the crowd, according to
(13:50):
Tom Boreski and McLean's.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, I didn't see anything about those throws injuring someone,
which seems fairly miraculous.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
But I would imagine he have meddled if he had
hurt somebody. But maybe so, I don't know, maybe I'm
wrong about that.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
The marathon course was another bizarre case in this Olympics.
It went through the middle of Paris, but it was
so poorly supervised that many of the finishers accused the
three French victors of taking some secret shortcuts, something that
they backed up by the fact that the winners looked
pretty comfortable. They didn't look like they had just run
a marathon.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
But everyone knows athletes are really the true stars of
the Games, and Paris in nineteen hundred had its fair
share of notable competitors too well. French athletes won the
majority of events, which wasn't surprising at all since they
were the only nation competing in several so there were
some events where they were the Frenchmen right, they were
the only ones competing. American Alvin kurnz Line became the
(14:56):
biggest name at the Games, he won the sixty meter,
the one hundred ten meter hurdles, and the two hundred
meter hurdles. He also won the long jump after his
teammate Meyer Prinstein, was forbidden to participate in the finals
by his university since they were to be held on Sunday,
even though prince Stein was Jewish. When Princelin won by
(15:16):
one centimeter, prince Stein was apparently so angry he punched
his teammate in the face.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Another strange athlete story, George Orton became the first Canadian
to medal eight years before Canada even sent a team
to the Games, and that's because Orton, who had been
attending University of Pennsylvania, where a lot of the American
track and field team members were based, just joined up
with their team. His first event, he came in last
(15:42):
place in the four hundred meter hurdles, but he still
meddled because there were only three competitors. An hour later, though,
he got kind of a more prestigious medal than that.
He won the steeplechase, which was considered his specialty, and
broke a world record, one of the six world records
broken at the Games.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Stan Rawley, who was an Australian track star one third
place in the sixty meter race, one hundred meters and
two hundred meter race. After his victories for Australia, then
the British got him to join their team for the
five thousand meter event since they were one man short.
Now Rowley had never run a distance race, but because
of the points scoring, all he actually had to do
(16:22):
was cross the finish line. In the end, he didn't
even have to do that. Race officials got so tired
of waiting for him that they automatically gave him last place,
which was enough for his team to win.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And I was a little amazed by this. Apparently he
was kind of walking, but five thousand meters, I can
see how a sprinter wouldn't be able to compete in that.
It's funny he took so long enough for them to
cancel it. So. Of the twenty two female competitors, though
British tennis player Charlotte Cooper was the first woman to
win an Olympic event. Margaret Abbott, though, I think, is
(16:54):
a particularly interesting case. She was just a Chicago girl
who was studying art in Paris and entered the golf
competition on a whim. And won. So not the sort
of traditional Olympic process you might expect today. But I
think the best athlete story has to be that of
an unnamed and unknown French boy. On August twenty sixth,
(17:16):
during the coaxed paar rowing event, the Dutch team needed
a replacement coxin and they drafted a French boy who
was believed to be somewhere around seven or was believed
to be somewhere around seven and twelve years old at
the time, and with this kid on their team, they
rode to victory. According to Olympic dot org, the French
(17:37):
kid did join in the ceremony. He was photographed, but
nobody got his name and years of research haven't been
able to uncover his identity. He's the lost Olympian.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
The thoroughly bizarre Paris Games closed October twenty eighth, nineteen hundred,
and even though they seem so disastrous, at least some
people were convinced by the Olympic message. A writer for
to Velo wrote November nineteen hundred that since the Games,
quote sport has definitely become a new religion. And in
(18:08):
nineteen oh four, the Saint Louis Olympics were again swallowed
up by a world's fair and went on for way
too long. Once again, four and a half months. Organizers
didn't even learn lessons from the disastrous Paris Marathon. American
Thomas Hicks won the gold after his teammate was disqualified
for driving most of the course. How do you even
do that?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's nineteen oh four, I don't know still though, even
at that Games, the Saint Louis Games records were broken.
Archie Han, for instance, the Milwaukee Metior set a time
for the two hundred meter race that stood for twenty
eight years, and athletes again captured public attention. American George iSER,
for instance, won six medals in gymnastics even though he
(18:52):
had a wooden leg the nineteen oh eight London Games.
By that point things were beginning to look a little
bit more official. They finally trying to double them up
with these Worlds fare and by nineteen twelve with the
Stockholm Games, for the first time, teams from five continents competed.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Strangely, it may have been the Olympics cancelation during World
War One that really led to its ultimate endurance. During
that time, Kubertant worked on reshaping the game's identity, moving
its headquarters to Switzerland and promoting its ideology as quote,
the pursuit of peace and intercultural communication through international sport.
After the first post war Games held in Belgium in
(19:32):
nineteen twenty, the Olympic rings appeared for the first time,
and Coopertant retired from the IOC after seeing Paris finally
make good with the successful nineteen twenty four games.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, and Cooperton Dublin and I were discussing this earlier
has an almost poetic end here. He died in nineteen
thirty seven, making his last game the nineteen thirty six
Berlin Olympics and sparing him too from seeing the two
games that were canceled during World War Two. He was
buried in Lausan, which is the Olympic headquarters, all except
(20:07):
for his heart, which was interred near the ruins of
ancient Olympia. Pretty fitting, it seems. His idea, though, is
I think a good point for us to close this
episode on. He hoped that the games would really inspire
international respect. That was the whole point of turning something
that clearly, as we've seen with these examples from the
(20:28):
earlier games from the Renaissance, was pretty common, turning it
into something that people from around the world could participate in.
And here's how he described it. To ask the peoples
of the world to love one another is childishness, but
to ask them to respect one another is not in
the least utopian. In order to respect one another, it
is first necessary to know one another through sport.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
this episode is out of the archive, if you heard
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over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now.
Our current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
You can find us all over social media at missed Inhistory,
(21:16):
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iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Happy Saturday. One of our episodes this week is going
to describe a number of things that happened at the
nineteen hundred Olympic Games. Prior hosts Sarah and Doblina did
a whole episode just on these games on July twenty fifth,
twenty twelve, so that's today's Saturday Classic. A little bit
of the general history of the nineteen hundred Games also
(00:24):
came up in our previous.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Episode on Pierre de Kuberptin and the Modern Olympic Games,
which we already ran as a Saturday Classic in November
of twenty twenty. Today's Classic has a little bit about
him as well. So all of these episodes kind of
knit together with one another, So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff
you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Hello, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Dablina Chockerboardy and today.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
The Olympic Games like such an institution that it's hard
to believe they almost didn't make it past their second
time out in nineteen hundred. But of course, then with
only one previous modern Olympics on the books, the Paris
Games just proved to be such a disaster and often
hilarious disasters. We're going to see that. It's pretty remarkable
that everyone agreed to give it another go four years
(01:21):
later in Saint Louis, and even the founder of the
modern Games himself, Pierre Baron de Coupetin, later said quote,
it's a miracle the Olympic movement survived these games.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
So we'll tell you just a few of the issues
as kind of a teaser here. For one thing, the
game stretched from May to October. I mean, can you
even imagine something like this no going on today. They
were so poorly organized as well and poorly promoted that
the athletes often didn't even realize they were competing in
the Olympics. And if you knew you were competing, it
(01:55):
wasn't because of the flashy venues and the high quality
equipment that you were working with. You were swimming in
the sun, you were competing in track and field events
throughout the woods and using old utility polls as hurdles.
So not exactly top of the line, not stuff going
on here.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So because of the odd circumstances that surround the nineteen
hundred Games, some sport historians don't even consider them Olympics
at all. They don't even consider them part of the
modern Olympic tradition, at least according to the Encyclopedia of
the Modern Olympic Movement. They're seen simply as sporting events
that were held as a side show for the Universal Exposition.
(02:34):
Still though, I mean, we're going to go ahead and
consider them real Olympics. And if we do that, the
Paris Games did include some pretty notable First one, it
was much larger than the first modern Games that had
been held in Athens, and the Paris Games attracted athletes
from more foreign nations than ever, so it was more
of an international event that the organizers were striving for.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
It also featured the first women competitors, which was significant,
and it helped set the precedent for rotating the Games
between cities. But to really understand the bizarre side show
that was the nineteen hundred Games, it helps to go
back a little bit. So we're gonna take you back
to some other Olympics, way back. The ancient Olympics may
(03:18):
have their roots in Greek myth, but the first official
games were actually held in seven seventy six BC, So
after trekking on for centuries with foot races, chariot competitions,
and wrestling matches to the death. The games were banned
in three ninety three a d by Christian Emperor Theodosius
due to their polytheistic roots, and the history of the
(03:38):
modern games might lead you to believe that there was
then a lull of more than fifteen hundred years with
no games at all, but that's actually not quite accurate.
Athletic competitions, both local and national, which build themselves the
Olympics and took at least some Hellenic inspiration, are documented
as far back as the Renaissance.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's a little known fact here. So we're just going
to give you some examples of these Olympic Games that
occurred in the meantime and some of the events they
featured too. Competitors in Robert Dover's Olympic Games, and that's
Olympic with a K added on. I really like that touch.
Those games started in sixteen twelve, and people would compete
(04:18):
in events based on their position in society, something that
seems pretty unusual, but maybe doesn't seem quite as strange
as if you look at it as a country fair,
that sort of thing. So gentry might compete in hunting
or even chess. Townspeople could wrestle or do something called
fighting at the barriers. Rural folk might participate in something
(04:40):
called cudgel play or shin kicking, tumbling, something called skittles,
or pipe and tabor music. So a varied repertoire of
activities for the rural folk.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Moving on to the nineteenth century, there was an explosion
in Olympic events. In the eighteen thirties. There were the
Olympic Games of ram Lursa with events like massed climbing,
and the much Winlock Olympian Games with sports like wheelbar racing,
plus some competition for the less athletically inclined, like a
(05:13):
knitting and a biblical history contest.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
There was also Evangelist Sappus Olympics in Greece, a pretty
famous one which was heavily influenced by ancient traditions. Still, though,
it took Pierre Baron de Couberton, an enthusiastic supporter of
physical education in general, to draw inspiration from these different
local Olympic traditions and push for an international game something
(05:38):
more like how we think of the Olympics today. So
Kubertant had become an ardent supporter of reviving the Olympics
since he met with Englishman doctor William Penny Brooks in
eighteen ninety and Brooks had started the much win Lock
Olympian Games forty years earlier, and he had also corresponded
for years with evangelist Zappas had sort of incorporated some
(06:00):
of those Greek traditions that were going on into his
own games. But since the eighteen sixties, Brooks had been
really interested in promoting the idea of an international Games.
The problem was he just couldn't get that much interest
for it.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
So after seeing the articles and ideas of the elderly Brooks,
coupertant took up the torch and went back to France
and pitched the idea himself at the Union d sport
Athletique in eighteen ninety two. He couched the event as
a diplomatic opportunity. He said, quote, let us export our oarsmen,
our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the
(06:36):
true free trade of the future, and the day it
is introduced into Europe, the cause of peace will have
received a new and strong ally.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Again. Though there just wasn't that much interest in this Coubertant, though,
was undeterred, and he tried to pitch his idea at
this Athletic Congress again in eighteen ninety four. This time
there was some success. He says that people probably just
went along with it for his benefit, but still they
went along with it, and Kubertant, being French, naturally suggested
(07:05):
that his hometown of Paris would be the perfect spot.
In nineteen hundred would be, you know, as a new century,
the perfect year to commence the modern Games after this
long lull.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Somehow, though both the date and the host city changed,
it was Athens that would host the inaugural games. Things
went well, both for Couberton and the new International Olympic Committee.
Though the Greek Prime Minister had initially refused to stage
the games, his successor was game to make this happen,
and the King of Greece opened the events on Greek
(07:46):
Independence Day in eighteen ninety six. There were athletes from
fourteen different countries international, just like they had hoped exactly.
The first medallist was American James Connolly, but the Greeks
took home their most COVID prize, first place in the marathon,
with more than one hundred thousand spectators showing up to
watch the race.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, due to the historical significance of the marathon, which
we've covered in an earlier episode on the Battle of Marathon,
you can understand why the Greeks really wanted that one.
Some of the events that these eighteen ninety six Olympics
sound a little bit risky today. For instance, Hungarian Alfred Hyos,
who won the one hundred meter and twelve hundred meter
swimming events, remembered being taken out to sea on a
(08:30):
boat and left to swim to shore. That was how
they were going to cover the long distance swimming, and
he said that quote his will to live completely overcame
his desire to win. I can understand that perspective too.
So even though there are some things that might seem
a little bit strange today, like that the first Olympics
were considered a success and the Greeks wanted to post
(08:52):
them permanently. They wanted to host the nineteen hundred Olympics
and on from there.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
The IOC, however, the Olympic Committee they preferred rotating, especially
since the Greek Turkish war made a second Athens game
seem a little less appealing. Plus Paris, even without Kuberton's
hometown Boosterism, was due to host the nineteen hundred Universal Exposition.
A great opportunity to kind of double up on major crowds.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
They're already, you've got the infrastructure. Seems like a perfect opportunity.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
To double being operative word there exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Really doubling up proved to be almost the undoing of
the Paris Games because it left no one definitively in charge.
Instead of being this special quadrennial celebration, the Olympics just
became a side show of the exposition, a fairground side show.
Part of the problem was that the French government was
already planning sporting expositions for the fair and remember this
(09:51):
is the early years of physical education, so it was
hoped that these public displays of sport, alongside other public
displays of indus and culture, would not only encourage folks
to get out there and move and exercise things we
might expect events like this to encourage today, but also
promote quote moral energy as well. According to the Encyclopedia
(10:13):
of the Modern Olympic Movement.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
But as the IOC lost control to the French government,
the difference between the Olympic sporting displays and the non
Olympic displays became very unclear. As we already mentioned, some
athletes didn't even know that they had participated in the Olympics.
Their confusion was heightened by a couple things. For one thing,
the vast number of Olympic events. According to Olympic dot Org,
(10:38):
there were ninety five events and nine hundred and ninety
seven competitors from twenty four different countries. Another problem was
the extreme under promotion. That telltale word Olympics wasn't used
on event programs, so even though there were scores of
visitors in Paris for the Universal Exposition, the Olympic displays
were sometimes poorly attended, both by the press and spectators.
(11:02):
The women's croquet match, for example, had only one person
in attendance, an Englishman who had traveled from Nice specifically
for this event.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
So I hope he enjoyed the show.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
At least he got a good seat.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I'm sure he did so. Many of the events also
seem pretty bizarre today, aside from the whole organizational issue.
Some of them, like archery or equestrian were new to
the Games at the time but are normal now. They
seem like Olympic staples. Others like gymnastics were simply a
lot different from what we know today. In nineteen hundred,
(11:36):
gymnasts had to complete sixteen different movements, including lifting a
fifty kilogram stone, climbing a rope, and pole vaulting. So
I'm imagining the little, tiny teenage Olympians doing the things
like the pole vaulting and the fifty kilogram stone.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Interesting, what's weirder as an event like say tug of
war at the Olympics. Incidentally, tug of war was one
of the five sports where people from several nationalities competed
on the same team too, so.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
More like a field day event.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, lots of strange stuff going on there, or strange
to us today. At least, swimming events included oddities like
an obstacle race where you would duck under boats. Doesn't
sound very safe.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah, but even traditional events got sort of an unusual
twist because of the venues that they were held in. So,
I mean, we all goggled at Beijing's stunning water cube
Aquatic Center during the two thousand and eight Games, but
competitors in the nineteen hundred Games had to do their
swimming competitions in the Seine, where currents would just create
(12:41):
these insane records. I mean, we were just talking about
the eighteen ninety six Games where you'd be towed out
to see, but swimming in a river wouldn't be much
easier either.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
No, it would not. And there was also the fencing,
which at one event pitted teachers against students, so that
was one thing, but it was also held at the
Universal Expositions cut area, so almost as if there was
some sort of early Olympic marketing.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Except we know that couldn't be it, because they didn't
market anything.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Just easier access to somebody's joke. I guess it just
seemed to make logical sense to put it there. Track
and field events were held on the grass center of
a horse track, where there were mounds and dips, and
the straightaway headed off into the woods and was uphill,
so spectators trying to see the finishes would stand up
(13:30):
and they would actually interfere with the runners. The hurdles,
as we mentioned, were old utility poles, and jumpers had
to dig their own pits, and discus and hammer throwers
frequently hit trees. But worse than that, the Hungarian medallist
Rudolph Bauer actually had throws enter the crowd, according to
(13:50):
Tom Boreski and McLean's.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, I didn't see anything about those throws injuring someone,
which seems fairly miraculous.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
But I would imagine he have meddled if he had
hurt somebody. But maybe so, I don't know, maybe I'm
wrong about that.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
The marathon course was another bizarre case in this Olympics.
It went through the middle of Paris, but it was
so poorly supervised that many of the finishers accused the
three French victors of taking some secret shortcuts, something that
they backed up by the fact that the winners looked
pretty comfortable. They didn't look like they had just run
a marathon.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
But everyone knows athletes are really the true stars of
the Games, and Paris in nineteen hundred had its fair
share of notable competitors too well. French athletes won the
majority of events, which wasn't surprising at all since they
were the only nation competing in several so there were
some events where they were the Frenchmen right, they were
the only ones competing. American Alvin kurnz Line became the
(14:56):
biggest name at the Games, he won the sixty meter,
the one hundred ten meter hurdles, and the two hundred
meter hurdles. He also won the long jump after his
teammate Meyer Prinstein, was forbidden to participate in the finals
by his university since they were to be held on Sunday,
even though prince Stein was Jewish. When Princelin won by
(15:16):
one centimeter, prince Stein was apparently so angry he punched
his teammate in the face.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Another strange athlete story, George Orton became the first Canadian
to medal eight years before Canada even sent a team
to the Games, and that's because Orton, who had been
attending University of Pennsylvania, where a lot of the American
track and field team members were based, just joined up
with their team. His first event, he came in last
(15:42):
place in the four hundred meter hurdles, but he still
meddled because there were only three competitors. An hour later, though,
he got kind of a more prestigious medal than that.
He won the steeplechase, which was considered his specialty, and
broke a world record, one of the six world records
broken at the Games.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Stan Rawley, who was an Australian track star one third
place in the sixty meter race, one hundred meters and
two hundred meter race. After his victories for Australia, then
the British got him to join their team for the
five thousand meter event since they were one man short.
Now Rowley had never run a distance race, but because
of the points scoring, all he actually had to do
(16:22):
was cross the finish line. In the end, he didn't
even have to do that. Race officials got so tired
of waiting for him that they automatically gave him last place,
which was enough for his team to win.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And I was a little amazed by this. Apparently he
was kind of walking, but five thousand meters, I can
see how a sprinter wouldn't be able to compete in that.
It's funny he took so long enough for them to
cancel it. So. Of the twenty two female competitors, though
British tennis player Charlotte Cooper was the first woman to
win an Olympic event. Margaret Abbott, though, I think, is
(16:54):
a particularly interesting case. She was just a Chicago girl
who was studying art in Paris and entered the golf
competition on a whim. And won. So not the sort
of traditional Olympic process you might expect today. But I
think the best athlete story has to be that of
an unnamed and unknown French boy. On August twenty sixth,
(17:16):
during the coaxed paar rowing event, the Dutch team needed
a replacement coxin and they drafted a French boy who
was believed to be somewhere around seven or was believed
to be somewhere around seven and twelve years old at
the time, and with this kid on their team, they
rode to victory. According to Olympic dot org, the French
(17:37):
kid did join in the ceremony. He was photographed, but
nobody got his name and years of research haven't been
able to uncover his identity. He's the lost Olympian.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
The thoroughly bizarre Paris Games closed October twenty eighth, nineteen hundred,
and even though they seem so disastrous, at least some
people were convinced by the Olympic message. A writer for
to Velo wrote November nineteen hundred that since the Games,
quote sport has definitely become a new religion. And in
(18:08):
nineteen oh four, the Saint Louis Olympics were again swallowed
up by a world's fair and went on for way
too long. Once again, four and a half months. Organizers
didn't even learn lessons from the disastrous Paris Marathon. American
Thomas Hicks won the gold after his teammate was disqualified
for driving most of the course. How do you even
do that?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's nineteen oh four, I don't know still though, even
at that Games, the Saint Louis Games records were broken.
Archie Han, for instance, the Milwaukee Metior set a time
for the two hundred meter race that stood for twenty
eight years, and athletes again captured public attention. American George iSER,
for instance, won six medals in gymnastics even though he
(18:52):
had a wooden leg the nineteen oh eight London Games.
By that point things were beginning to look a little
bit more official. They finally trying to double them up
with these Worlds fare and by nineteen twelve with the
Stockholm Games, for the first time, teams from five continents competed.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Strangely, it may have been the Olympics cancelation during World
War One that really led to its ultimate endurance. During
that time, Kubertant worked on reshaping the game's identity, moving
its headquarters to Switzerland and promoting its ideology as quote,
the pursuit of peace and intercultural communication through international sport.
After the first post war Games held in Belgium in
(19:32):
nineteen twenty, the Olympic rings appeared for the first time,
and Coopertant retired from the IOC after seeing Paris finally
make good with the successful nineteen twenty four games.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, and Cooperton Dublin and I were discussing this earlier
has an almost poetic end here. He died in nineteen
thirty seven, making his last game the nineteen thirty six
Berlin Olympics and sparing him too from seeing the two
games that were canceled during World War Two. He was
buried in Lausan, which is the Olympic headquarters, all except
(20:07):
for his heart, which was interred near the ruins of
ancient Olympia. Pretty fitting, it seems. His idea, though, is
I think a good point for us to close this
episode on. He hoped that the games would really inspire
international respect. That was the whole point of turning something
that clearly, as we've seen with these examples from the
(20:28):
earlier games from the Renaissance, was pretty common, turning it
into something that people from around the world could participate in.
And here's how he described it. To ask the peoples
of the world to love one another is childishness, but
to ask them to respect one another is not in
the least utopian. In order to respect one another, it
is first necessary to know one another through sport.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
this episode is out of the archive, if you heard
an email address or a Facebook RL or something similar
over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now.
Our current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
You can find us all over social media at missed Inhistory,
(21:16):
and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,
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