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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you missed in history class from house

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Helloo, welcome to the podcast. I'm Sair

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Speaker 1: Dowdy and I'm Deblin a Chruck reboarding and today. The

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Speaker 1: Olympic Games seemed like such an institution that it's hard

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Speaker 1: to believe they almost didn't make it pass their second

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Speaker 1: time out in nineteen hundred. But of course, then, with

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Speaker 1: only one previous modern Olympics on the books, the Paris

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Speaker 1: Games just proved to be such a disaster and often

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Speaker 1: hilarious disasters, we're going to see that. It's pretty remarkable

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Speaker 1: that everyone agreed to give it another go four years

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Speaker 1: later in St. Louis, and even the founder of the

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Speaker 1: modern Games himself, Pierre baron De later said quote, it's

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Speaker 1: a miracle the Olympic movement survived these games. So we'll

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Speaker 1: tell you just a few of the issues as kind

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Speaker 1: of a teaser here. For one thing, the games stretched

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Speaker 1: from May to October. I mean, can you even imagine

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Speaker 1: something like this going on today. They were so poorly

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Speaker 1: organized as well and poorly promoted that the athletes often

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Speaker 1: didn't even realize they were competing in the Olympics. And

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Speaker 1: if you knew you were competing. It wasn't because of

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Speaker 1: the flashy venues in the high quality equipment that you

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Speaker 1: were working with. I mean, you were swimming in the sun,

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Speaker 1: you were competing in track and field events throughout the

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Speaker 1: woods and using old utility polls as hurdles. So not

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Speaker 1: exactly top of the line stuff going on here. So,

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Speaker 1: because of the odd circumstances that's around the nineteen hundred Games,

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Speaker 1: some sport historians don't even consider them Olympics at all.

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Speaker 1: They don't even consider them part of the modern Olympic tradition,

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Speaker 1: at least according to the Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement.

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Speaker 1: They're seen simply as sporting events that were held as

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Speaker 1: a side show for the Universal Exposition. Still, though, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and consider them real Olympics, and

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Speaker 1: if we do that, the Paris Games did include some

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Speaker 1: pretty notal well. First one, it was much larger than

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Speaker 1: the first modern Games that had been held in Athens,

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Speaker 1: and the Paris Games attracted athletes from more foreign nations

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Speaker 1: than ever, so it was more of an international event

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Speaker 1: that the organizers were striving for, and also featured the

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Speaker 1: first women competitors, which was significant and it helped set

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Speaker 1: the precedent for rotating the games between cities. But to

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Speaker 1: really understand the bizarre side show that was the games,

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Speaker 1: it helps to go back a little bit. So we're

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Speaker 1: gonna take you back to some other Olympics, way back.

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Speaker 1: The ancient Olympics may have their roots in Greek myth,

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Speaker 1: but the first official games were actually held in seven

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Speaker 1: seventy six BC. So after trucking on for centuries with

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Speaker 1: foot races, chariot competitions, and wrestling matches to the death,

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Speaker 1: the games were banned in three D by Christian Emperor

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Speaker 1: Theodocious due to their polytheistic roots, and the history of

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Speaker 1: the modern games might lead you to believe that there

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Speaker 1: was then a lull of more than fundred years with

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Speaker 1: no games at all, but that's actually not quite accurate.

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Speaker 1: Athletic competitions, both local and national, which build themselves the

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Speaker 1: Olympics and took at least some Hellenic inspiration, are documented

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Speaker 1: as far back as the Renaissance, a little known fact here.

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Speaker 1: So we're just gonna give you some examples of these

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Speaker 1: Olympic Games that occurred in the meantime and some of

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Speaker 1: the events they featured. Two competitors in Robert Dover's Olympic Games,

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Speaker 1: and that's Olympic with a K added on. I really

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Speaker 1: like that touch. Those games started in sixteen twelve, and

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Speaker 1: people would compete in events based on their position in society,

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Speaker 1: something that seems pretty unusual but maybe doesn't seem quite

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Speaker 1: as strange as if you look at it as a

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Speaker 1: country fair that sort of thing. So gentry might compete

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Speaker 1: in hunting or even chess. Townspeople could wrestle or do

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Speaker 1: something called fighting at the barriers. Rural folk might participate

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Speaker 1: in something called cudgel play, or in kicking, tumbling, something

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Speaker 1: called skittles, or pipe and tabor music. So a varied

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Speaker 1: repertoire of activities were for the rural folk. Moving on

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Speaker 1: to the nineteenth century, there was an explosion in Olympic events.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteen thirties. There were the Olympic Games of

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Speaker 1: rum Lursa with events like mass climbing, and the much

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Speaker 1: Weelock Olympian Games with sports like wheelbar racing, plus some

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Speaker 1: competition for the less athletically inclined, like knitting and a

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Speaker 1: biblical history contest. There was also evangelist Sappa's Olympics in Greece,

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Speaker 1: the pretty famous one, which was heavily influenced by ancient traditions. Still, though,

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Speaker 1: it took Pierre Baron de Couberton, an enthusiastic supporter of

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Speaker 1: physical education in general, to draw inspiration from these different

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Speaker 1: local Olympic traditions and push for an international game, something

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Speaker 1: more like how we think of the Olympics today. So

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Speaker 1: Coubert had become an ardent supporter of reviving the Olympics

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Speaker 1: since he met with Englishman Dr William Penny brook in

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety and Brooks had started the much Wenlock Olympian

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Speaker 1: Games forty years earlier, and he had also corresponded for

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Speaker 1: years with evangelist Appa's had sort of incorporated some of

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Speaker 1: those Greek traditions that were going on into his own games.

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Speaker 1: But since the eighteen sixties, Brooks had been really interested

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Speaker 1: in promoting the idea of an international games. The problem

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Speaker 1: was he just couldn't get that much interest for it.

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Speaker 1: So after seeing the articles and ideas of the elderly Brooks,

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Speaker 1: Cooperton took up the torch and went back to France

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Speaker 1: and pitched the idea himself at the Union de sport

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Speaker 1: Athletique in eighteen ninety two, he couched the event as

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Speaker 1: a diplomatic opportunity. He said, quote, let us export our oarsmen,

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Speaker 1: our runners are fencers into other lands. That is the

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Speaker 1: true free trade of the future. And the day it

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Speaker 1: is introduced into Europe, the cause of peace will have

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Speaker 1: received a new and strong ally. Again, though there just

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Speaker 1: wasn't that much interest in this. Couberton, though, was undeterred,

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Speaker 1: and he tried to pitch his idea this Athletic Congress

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Speaker 1: again in eighteen nine four. This time there was some success.

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Speaker 1: He says that people probably just went along with it

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Speaker 1: for his benefit, but still they went along with it,

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Speaker 1: and Kuberton, being French, naturally suggested that his hometown of

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Speaker 1: Paris would be the perfect spot. In nineteen hundred would be,

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Speaker 1: you know, as a new century, the perfect year to

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Speaker 1: commence the modern Games after this long lull. Somehow, though

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Speaker 1: both the date and the host city changed, it was

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Speaker 1: Athens that would host the inaugural Games. Things went well,

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Speaker 1: both for Cuberton and the new International Olympic Committee. Though

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Speaker 1: the Greek Prime Minister had initially refused to stage the games,

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Speaker 1: his successor was game for to make this happen. And

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Speaker 1: the King of Greece opened the events on Greek Independence

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Speaker 1: Day in eighteen. There were athletes from four teen different

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Speaker 1: countries international, just like they had hoped exactly. The first

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Speaker 1: medalist was American James Connolly, but the Greeks took home

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Speaker 1: their most coveted prize, first place in the marathon, with

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Speaker 1: more than one hundred thousand spectators showing up to watch

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Speaker 1: the race. Yeah, due to the historical significance of the marathon,

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Speaker 1: which we've covered in an earlier episode on the Battle

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Speaker 1: of Marathon, you can understand why the Greeks really wanted

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Speaker 1: that one. Some of the events that these Olympics sound

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Speaker 1: a little bit risky today. For instance, Hungarian Alfred Hios,

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Speaker 1: who won the one hundred meter and twelve swimming events,

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Speaker 1: remembered being taken out to see on a boat and

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Speaker 1: left to swim to shore. That was how they were

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Speaker 1: going to cover the long distance swimming, and he said

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Speaker 1: that quote his will to live completely overcame his desire

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Speaker 1: to win. I can understand that perspective too. So even

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Speaker 1: though there are some things that might seem a little

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Speaker 1: bit strange today, like that the first Olympics were considered

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Speaker 1: a success and the Greeks wanted to post them permanently.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to host the nineteen hundred Olympics and on

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Speaker 1: from there the IOC. However, the Olympic Committee they preferred rotating,

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Speaker 1: especially since the Greek Turkish war made a second Athens

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Speaker 1: game seem a little less appealing. Plus, Paris, even without

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Speaker 1: Kuberton's hometown boosterism, was due to host the nineteen hundred

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Speaker 1: Universal Exposition. A great opportunity to kind of double up

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Speaker 1: on major crowds. They're already, you've got the infrastructure. Seems

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Speaker 1: like a perfect opportunity to being operative. Word, they're exactly

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Speaker 1: really Doubling up proved to be almost the undoing of

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Speaker 1: the Paris Games because it left no one definitively in charge.

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Speaker 1: Instead of being this special quadrennial celebration, the Olympics just

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Speaker 1: became a sideshow of the exposition, a fairground side show.

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Speaker 1: Part of the problem was that the French government was

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Speaker 1: already planning sporting expositions for the fair and remember this

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Speaker 1: is the early years of physical education, so it was

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Speaker 1: hoped that these public displays of sport, alongside other public

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Speaker 1: displays of industry and culture, would not only encourage folks

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Speaker 1: to get out there and move and exercise things. We

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Speaker 1: might expect events like this to encourage today, but also

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Speaker 1: promote quote moral energy as well, according to the Encyclopedia

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Speaker 1: of the Modern Olympic Movement. But as the IOC lost

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Speaker 1: control to the French government, the difference between the Olympic

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Speaker 1: sporting displays and the non Olympic displays became very unclear.

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Speaker 1: As we already mentioned, some athletes didn't even know that

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Speaker 1: they had participated in the Olympics. Their confusion was heightened

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Speaker 1: by a couple of things. For one thing, the vast

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Speaker 1: number of Olympic events. According to Olympic dot org there

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Speaker 1: were events and nine competitors from twenty four different countries.

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Speaker 1: Another problem was the extreme under promotion. That telltale word

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Speaker 1: Olympics wasn't you used on event programs. So even though

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Speaker 1: there were scores of visitors in Paris for the Universal Exposition,

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Speaker 1: the Olympic displays were sometimes poorly attended, both by the

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Speaker 1: press and spectators. The women's croquet match, for example, had

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Speaker 1: only one person in attendance, an Englishman who had traveled

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Speaker 1: from Nice specifically for this event. So I hope he

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Speaker 1: enjoyed the show. At least he got a good seat.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure he did so. Many of the events also

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Speaker 1: seem pretty bizarre today, aside from the whole organizational issue.

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Speaker 1: Some of them, like archery or equestrian were new to

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Speaker 1: the Games at the time, but are normal now. They

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Speaker 1: seem like Olympic staples. Others, like gymnastics, were simply a

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Speaker 1: lot different from what we know today. In nineteen hundred,

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Speaker 1: gymnasts had to complete sixteen different movements, including lifting a

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Speaker 1: fifty kilogram stone, climbing a rope, and pole vaulting. So

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Speaker 1: I'm imagining the little little, tiny teenage Olympians doing the

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Speaker 1: thing like the pole vaulting in the fifty kim stone? Interesting?

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Speaker 1: What's weirder as an event like say tug of war

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Speaker 1: at the Olympics. Incidentally, tug of war was one of

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Speaker 1: the five sports where people from several nationalities competed on

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Speaker 1: the same team too, so like a field day event. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: lots of strange stuff going on there are strange to

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Speaker 1: us today. At least, swimming events included oddities like an

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Speaker 1: obstacle race where you would duck under boats. Doesn't sound

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Speaker 1: very safe. Yeah, but even traditional events got sort of

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Speaker 1: an unusual twist because of the venues that they were

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Speaker 1: held in. So I mean we all goggled at beijing

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Speaker 1: stunning watercube Aquatic Center during the two thousand eight Games,

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Speaker 1: but competitors in the nineteen hundred Games had to do

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Speaker 1: their swimming competitions in the then, where currents would just

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Speaker 1: create these insane records. I mean, we were just talking

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Speaker 1: about the Games where you'd be towed out to see,

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Speaker 1: but swimming in a river wouldn't be much easier either, No,

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Speaker 1: it would not. And there was also the fencing, which

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Speaker 1: at one event pitted teachers against students, so that was

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Speaker 1: one thing, but it was also held at the Universal

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Speaker 1: Expositions Cutlery area, so almost as if there was some

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Speaker 1: sort of early Olympic marketing. Couldn't be it because they

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Speaker 1: didn't market anything, right, Just easier access, to guess, just

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Speaker 1: seemed to make logical sense to put it there. Track

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Speaker 1: and field events were held on the grass center of

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Speaker 1: a horse track where there were mounds and dips, and

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Speaker 1: the straightaway headed off into the woods and was uphill,

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Speaker 1: so spectators trying to see the finishes would stand up

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Speaker 1: and they would actually interfere with the runners the hurdles

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Speaker 1: as we mentioned were old utility poles and jumpers had

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Speaker 1: to dig their own pit and discuss, and hammer throwers

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Speaker 1: frequently hit tree just wasn't enough room. But worse than that,

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Speaker 1: the Hungarian medalist Rudolf Bauer actually had throws enter the crowd.

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Speaker 1: According to Ambarrewski and the Cleans, Yeah, I didn't see

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Speaker 1: anything about those throws injuring someone, which seems fairly miraculous.

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Speaker 1: But I would imagine he wouldn't know meddled if he

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Speaker 1: had hurt somebody. But maybe so, I don't know, may

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Speaker 1: I'm wrong about that of The marathon course was another

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Speaker 1: Alvin Kruntzline became the biggest name at the Games. He

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Speaker 1: Another strange athlete story, George Orton became the first Canadian

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Speaker 1: And I was a little amazed by this. Apparently he

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Speaker 1: see how a sprinter wouldn't be able to compete in that.

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Speaker 1: It's funny he took the long enough for them to

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Speaker 1: cancel it. So of the twenty two female competitors, though

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Speaker 1: British tennis player Charlotte Cooper was the first woman to

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Speaker 1: a particularly interesting case. She was just a Chicago girl

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Speaker 1: an unnamed and unknown French boy. On August, during the

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Speaker 1: coaxed pair rowing event, the Dutch team needed a replacement

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Speaker 1: coxin and they drafted a French boy who was believed

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Speaker 1: and according to Olympic dot org, the French kid did

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Speaker 1: uncover his identity. He's the lost Olympian. Well. The thoroughly

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Speaker 1: bizarre Paris Games closed October dred and even though they

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Speaker 1: the Olympic message. A writer for Ltevello wrote November nineteen

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Speaker 1: hundred that since the game's quote, sport has definitely become

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Speaker 1: a new religion. And in nineteen o four the St.

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Speaker 1: Louis Olympics were again swallowed up by a world's fair

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Speaker 1: and went on for way too long. Once again four

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Speaker 1: How do you even do that? It's nineteen o four,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Still though, even at that Games, the St.

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Speaker 1: Louis Games records were broken. Archie Han, for instance, the

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Speaker 1: American George iSER, for instance, won six medals in gymnastics,

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Speaker 1: even though he had a wooden leg uh the nineteen

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Speaker 1: to look a little bit more official. They finally stopped

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Speaker 1: trying to double them up with these worlds there, and

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Speaker 1: by nineteen twelve, with the Stockholm Games, for the first time,

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Speaker 1: teams from five continents competed. Strangely, it may have been

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Speaker 1: the Olympics cancelation during World War One that really led

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Speaker 1: to its ultimate endurance. During that time, Couberton worked on

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Speaker 1: reshaping the game's identity, moving its headquarters to Switzerland, and

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Speaker 1: promoting its ideology as quote, the pursuit of peace and

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Speaker 1: intercultural communication through international sport. After the first post war Games,

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Speaker 1: held in Belgium in nineteen twenty, the Olympic rings appeared

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Speaker 1: for the first time, and Couberton retired from the IOC

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Speaker 1: after seeing Paris finally made good with the successful nineteen

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Speaker 1: four games. Yeah and Cooperton, Deblan and I were discussing

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Speaker 1: this earlier has an almost poetic end here. He died

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven, making his last game the nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty six Berlin Olympics and sparing him too from seeing

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Speaker 1: He was buried in Lausan, which is the Olympic headquarters,

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Speaker 1: all except for his heart, which was interred near the

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Speaker 1: ruins of ancient Olympia. Pretty fitting, it seems. His idea, though,

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Speaker 1: is I think a good point for us to close

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Speaker 1: this episode on. He hoped that the games would really

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Speaker 1: inspire international respect. That was the whole point of turning

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Speaker 1: something that clearly, as we've seen with these examples from

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Speaker 1: the earlier games from the Renaissance, was pretty common, turning

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Speaker 1: it into something that people from around the world could

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Speaker 1: participate in. And here's how he described it. To ask

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Speaker 1: the peoples of the world to love one another is childishness,

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Speaker 1: but to ask them to respect one another is not

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Speaker 1: in the least utopian. In order to respect one another,

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Speaker 1: it is first necessary to know one another through sport.

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Speaker 1: Just one final note on the strangeness of the Paras Olympics.

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Speaker 1: The Paris medals were rectangular. I mean, come on, Paris

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Speaker 1: like rectangular medals. I guess I shouldn't really judge. They

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Speaker 1: only had one previous metal shape too to go on

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Speaker 1: you look at a slide show which you can find

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Speaker 1: online of Olympic medals, there are a lot of round

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Speaker 1: medals and then there's this rectangular one. So I think

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Speaker 1: that's a good time to bring us to listener meal.

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Speaker 1: So we got a message from Arena in Toronto and

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Speaker 1: she was writing about the Freya of Arabia episode and

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Speaker 1: she said that the timing of that episode turned out

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Speaker 1: quite perfectly for me. So I thought I should share

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Speaker 1: this with you. My brothers and I bought my mom

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Speaker 1: and iPod for Mother's Day, and I loaded it up

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Speaker 1: with lots of stuff, including your podcast and the recent

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Speaker 1: episode on Freya of Arabia. The next day, I listened

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Speaker 1: to the episode at home and couldn't believe the timing.

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Speaker 1: The gift for our mom was also a going away present,

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Speaker 1: as she is heading out tomorrow for a three week

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Speaker 1: trip to Israel. She hasn't been to Israel since the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and more than one person raised an eyebrow

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Speaker 1: at the idea of a woman in her fifties spending

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Speaker 1: three weeks completely by herself in the Middle East. What

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Speaker 1: a perfect coincidence that the first episode of Yours she'll

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Speaker 1: hear on the plane over there is the story of Freya,

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Speaker 1: who had people telling her the very same. Although my

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Speaker 1: mom won't be doing anything extreme like crossing borders in

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Speaker 1: secret or exploring harems, I couldn't help but smile at

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Speaker 1: the thought of Freya's adventurous spirit living on in women

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Speaker 1: like my mom. I'm sure she'll have the time of

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Speaker 1: her life exploring such a fascinating part of the world.

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Speaker 1: Go Mom, that's cool. So thank you Rena for writing

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Speaker 1: in and I hope your mom had an awesome trip

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Speaker 1: and did take a little inspiration from Freya. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: we all could. Yeah, I'm taking a little inspiration from

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Speaker 1: your mom. I think that's pretty cool. We have another

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Speaker 1: note here from Laura. She says, as a home educating mom,

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Speaker 1: I use your podcast for my own background knowledge, but

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Speaker 1: I also love to share them with my oldest daughter,

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Speaker 1: because of these podcasts is a big history buff. Listening

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Speaker 1: to your podcast is her favorite audio, which is a compliment.

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Speaker 1: Whoever heard of a teenage girl preferring history to Justin Bieber.

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Speaker 1: I honestly have to say I didn't know, Laura, that

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Speaker 1: there was so much competition out there, such stiff competition.

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Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, that we were considering Justin Bieber

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Speaker 1: one of our competitors. I know if I knew that,

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Speaker 1: I'd be a lot more nervous coming in here. Well,

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Speaker 1: but thanks for writing and we love to first of all,

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Speaker 1: just here when people are using our podcasts as part

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Speaker 1: of education, and you know, we love to hear that

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Speaker 1: you can bring family members together. So so we have

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Speaker 1: to mother daughter um to mother daughter listener meals that's

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Speaker 1: our common theme for this, so thank you both for

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Speaker 1: writing in. If you guys want to share anything with us,

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Speaker 1: where at History Podcasts at Discovery dot com. We're also

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at Myston History and on Facebook. And if

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Speaker 1: you want to learn a little bit more about previous

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Speaker 1: games and some of the strange or sports editions that

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Speaker 1: we discussed today, we have an article on our site

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Speaker 1: called ten Bizarre Olympic Events and you can find that

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Speaker 1: by searching for the Olympics on our homepage, which is

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Speaker 1: www dot how stuff works dot com. H for more

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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com.