PARIS 1924 Games of the VIII Summer Olympiad

At the 1924 Paris Games, the Olympic motto, "Citius, Altius, Fortius", (Swifter, Higher, Stronger) was introduced, as was the Closing Ceremony ritual of raising three flags: the flag of the International Olympic Committee, the flag of the host nation and the flag of the next host nation. The number of participating nations jumped from 29 to 44, signaling widespread acceptance of the Olympics as a major event, as did the presence of 1,000 journalists. Women’s fencing made its debut as Ellen Osiier of Denmark earned the gold medal without losing a single bout. Johnny Weissmuller of the United States won two gold medals in swimming on 20 July alone. That same day he earned a bronze medal in water polo. He later went to Hollywood and starred as Tarzan in twelve movies. American swimmer Gertrude Ederle won a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle. Two years later she caused a sensation by becoming the first woman to swim across the English Channel (La Manche) - and in a time almost two hours faster than any man had ever achieved. Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi, won five gold medals to add to the three he had won in 1920. His most spectacular performance occurred on 10 July. First he easily won the 1,500m. Then, a mere 55 minutes later, he returned to the track and won the 5,000m. Nurmi’s teammate, Ville Ritola, did not do badly either in 1924: he won four gold medals and two silver.

Dates: May 4 - July 27
Participating N.O.C.: 44
Number of Sports: 18
Number of Events: 126
Number of Athletes: 3092
Men's : 2956
Women's : 136
Opening: Gaston Doumergue, Republic President
Oath : Georges André
Candidates cities: Amsterdam (NED), Barcelone (ESP), Los Angeles (USA), Prague (CZE) and Rome (ITA)

CHAMONIX 1924 Ist Olympic Winter Games

Chamonix 1924
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In 1921, the International Olympic Committee voted to stage “International Sports Week 1924” in Chamonix, France. This event was a complete success and was retroactively named the First Olympic Winter Games. The first event to be decided in Chamonix was the men’s 500m speed skating. The first gold medal went to Charles Jewtraw of the United States. A. Clas Thunberg of Finland earned medals in all five speed skating events: three gold, one silver and one bronze. Norway’s Thorleif Haug dominated Nordic skiing, winning both cross-country races and the Nordic combined. The Canadian ice hockey team won all five of their matches, outscoring their opponents 110 to 3.


Dates : January 24- February 5
Participating N.O.C.: 16
Number of Sports : 5
Number of Events : 14
Number of Athletes : 258
Men : 245
Women : 13
Opening : lUnder Secretary for Physical Education, Gaston Vidal
Oath : Camille Mandrillon

ANTWERP 1920 Games of the VII Olympiad

The 1916 Olympics were scheduled to be held in Berlin, but were canceled because of what came to be known as World War I. The 1920 Games were awarded to Antwerp to honor the suffering that had been inflicted on the Belgian people during the war. The Opening Ceremony was notable for the introduction of the Olympic flag and the presentation of the Athletes’ Oath. In a performance unequaled in Olympic history, Nedo Nadi of Italy earned gold medals in five of the six fencing events. Ethelda Bleibtrey of the United States won gold medals in all three women’s swimming contests. Including preliminary heats, she swam in five races and broke the world record in every one. France’s Suzanne Lenglen dominated women’s tennis singles so completely that she lost only four games in the ten sets she played. At age 72, Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn earned a silver medal in the team double-shot running deer event to become the oldest medalist ever. The 1920 12-foot dinghy sailing event was the only event in Olympic history to be held in two countries. The first race was staged in Belgium, but the last two races took place in the Netherlands because both entrants were Dutch.



Dates: april 20 - september 12
Participating N.O.C.: 29
Number of Sports: 22
Number of Events: 154
Number of Athletes: 2 669
Men's : 2 591
Women's : 78
Opening: His majesty, King Albert
Oath : Victor Boin
Candidates cities: Amsterdam (NED), Lyon (FRA)

STOCKHOLM 1912 Games of the V Olympiad

Held in Stockholm, the 1912 Olympics were a model of efficiency. The Swedish hosts introduced the use of unofficial electronic timing devices for the track events, as well as the first use of a public address system. The modern pentathlon was added to the Olympic program. Women's events in swimming and diving were also introduced. Sweden would not allow boxing contests to be held in their country. After the Games, the International Olympic Committee decided to limit the power of host nations in deciding the Olympic program. If there was an unofficial theme of the 1912 Games, it was endurance. The course for the cycling road race was 320km (199 miles), the longest race of any kind in Olympic history. In Greco-Roman wrestling, the middleweight semifinal match between Russian Martin Klein and Finland’s Alfred Asikainen lasted eleven hours. Hannes Kohlemainen of Finland won three gold medals in long-distance running. The most popular hero of the 1912 Games was Jim Thorpe of the United States. Thorpe won the five-event pentathlon and shattered the world record in the ten-event decathlon. One member of the Austrian team that finished second in the team sabre fencing event was Otto Herschmann, who was, at that time, president of the Austrian Olympic Committee. Herschmann is the only sitting national Olympic committee president to win an Olympic medal.



Dates : May 5 - July 27
Participating N.O.C.: 28
Number of Sports: 13
Number of Events: 102
Number of Athletes: 2547
Men: 2490
Women: 57
Opening: King Gustave V

LONDON 1908 Games of the IV Olympiad

The 1908 Olympics were originally awarded to Rome, but were reassigned to London. At the Opening Ceremony, the athletes marched into the stadium by nation, as most countries sent selected national teams. Archers William and Charlotte Dod became the first brother and sister medalists. Oscar Swahn, aged 60, was the oldest ever competitor to earn an Olympic gold medal, winning the running deer shooting, single shot. 1908 marked the first appearance of diving and field hockey.




In the spirit of sportsmanship, the final in middleweight Greco-Roman wrestling between Frithiof Martensson and Mauritz Andersson was postponed one day to allow Martensson to recover from a minor injury. Martensson won. Ray Ewry won the standing high jump and the standing long jump for the third time and became the only person in Olympic history to win a career total of eight gold medals in individual events. The event that caught the public imagination around the world was the dramatic ending of the marathon. After 42 kilometres (26 miles) of running, the first man to enter the stadium was Dorando Pietri of Italy, but he collapsed on the track five times and was disqualified when officials carried him across the finish line.

Dates : April 27 - October 31
Participating N.O.C.: 22
Number of Sports: 23
Number of Events: 109
Number of Athletes: 2035
Men: 1999
Women: 36
Opening: King Édouard VII
Candidate cities: Berlin (GER), Milan (ITA), Rome (ITA

ST LOUIS 1904 - Games of the III Olympiad

The 1904 St. Louis Olympics organizers repeated all of the mistakes of 1900. The Olympic competitions, spread out over four and a half months, were lost in the chaos of a World’s Fair. Of the 94 events generally considered to have been part of the Olympic program, only 42 included athletes who were not from the United States. The 1904 Olympics did have a few highlights.
They were the first at which gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded for first, second and third place. Boxing and freestyle wrestling made their debuts. Marathon runners Len Tau and Jan Mashiani, Tswana tribesmen who were in St. Louis as part of the Boer War exhibit at the World’s Fair, became the first Africans to compete in the Olympics. One of the most remarkable athletes was the American gymnast George Eyser, who won six medals even though his left leg was made of wood. Chicago runner James Lightbody won the steeplechase and the 800m and then set a world record in the 1,500m.




Dates : July 1st- November 23
Participating N.O.C.: 12
Number of Sports: 16
Number of Events: 89
Number of Athletes: 617
Men: 609
Women: 8
Opening: David R. Francis, President of the World's fair
Bid city: Chicago (USA)

PARIS 1900 - Games of the II Olympiad

The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next. The style that was universally present in the Exposition was Art Nouveau. Exposition Universelle viewMore than 50 million people attended the exhibition (a world record at the time), yet it still failed to turn a profit, costing the French government 2,000,000 Francs. The fair included more than 76,000 exhibitors and covered 1.12 square kilometres of Paris.

The Exposition Universelle was where talking films and escalators were first publicized, and where Campbell's Soup was awarded a gold medal (an image of which still appears on its label). At the Exposition Rudolf Diesel exhibited his diesel engine, running on peanut oil. Brief films of excerpts from opera and ballet are apparently the first films exhibited publicly with projection of both image and recorded sound. The Exposition also featured many panoramic paintings and extensions of the panorama technique, such as the Cinéorama, Mareorama, and Trans-Siberian Railway Panorama.


Alexandre III bridgeThe exhibition lasted from 14 April until 10 November 1900. A special committee, led by Gustave Eiffel, awarded a gold medal to Lavr Proskuryakov's project for the Yenisei Bridge in Krasnoyarsk.

A number of Paris' most noted structures were built for the Exposition, including the Gare de Lyon, the Gare d'Orsay (now the Musée d'Orsay), the Pont Alexandre III, the Grand Palais, La Ruche, and the Petit Palais. The first line of the Paris Metro also began operation to co-incide with the Exposition. Although completed in just 18 months, it was nevertheless slightly late, taking its first paying passengers to the Ancien Palais du Trocadéro site on 19 July 1900.

Part of the Exposition was the Second Olympic Games, which were spread over five months. So unnoted were these games that many athletes died unaware that they had been Olympians. The games also marked the first participation by female athletes and, in such sports as tennis, football (soccer), polo, rowing and tug of war, teams were multinational.


A Human Zoo was present at the exposition.

The Finnish Pavilion at the Exposition was designed by the architectural firm of Gesellius, Lindgren, and Saarinen. It was published in Dekorative Kunst 3 (1900)


The Games of 1900 were held in Paris as part of the Exposition Universelle Internationale - the Paris World’s Fair. The exposition organizers spread the events over five months and de-emphasized their Olympic status to such an extent that many athletes died without ever knowing that they had participated in the Olympics. Women made their first appearance in the modern Games. The first to compete were Mme. Brohy and Mlle. Ohnier of France in croquet. The first female champion was in tennis: Charlotte Cooper of Great Britain. Tennis was one of five sports in which athletes from different nations competed on the same team. The others were football, polo, rowing and tug of war. Alvin Kraenzlein won four athletics events in three days and, on 16 July, Ray Ewry, who had overcome childhood polio, won three championships in one day - all in the standing jump events.

Dates : May 14 - october 28
Participating N.O.C.: 24
Number of Sports: 20
Number of Events: 88
Number of Athletes: 1 225
Men: 1 206
Women: 19

ATHENS 1896 - Games of the I Olympiad

The revival of the ancient Olympics attracted athletes from 14 nations, with the largest delegations coming from Greece, Germany, France and Great Britain. On 6 April 1896, the American James Connolly won the triple jump to become the first Olympic champion in more than 1,500 years. Winners were awarded a silver medal and an olive branch.

The German athlete Carl Schumann finished in the top five events of three different sports. The people of Athens greeted the Games with great enthusiasm. Their support was rewarded when a Greek shepherd, Spyridon Louis, won the most popular event, the marathon.

Dates: March 25- April 3
Participating N.O.C.: 13
Number of Sports: 9
Number of Events: 43
Number of Athletes: 245
Men: 245
Women: -
Opening: King George 1st of Greece

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