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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. One of our episodes this week is going

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Speaker 1: to describe a number of things that happened at the

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Speaker 1: nineteen hundred Olympic Games. Prior hosts Sarah and Doblina did

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Speaker 1: a whole episode just on these games on July twenty fifth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve, so that's today's Saturday Classic. A little bit

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Speaker 1: of the general history of the nineteen hundred Games also

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Speaker 1: came up in our previous.

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Speaker 2: Episode on Pierre de Kuberptin and the Modern Olympic Games,

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Speaker 2: which we already ran as a Saturday Classic in November

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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty. Today's Classic has a little bit about

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Speaker 2: him as well. So all of these episodes kind of

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Speaker 2: knit together with one another, So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 2: you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 4: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Dablina Chockerboardy and today.

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Speaker 3: The Olympic Games like such an institution that it's hard

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Speaker 3: to believe they almost didn't make it past their second

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Speaker 3: time out in nineteen hundred. But of course, then with

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Speaker 3: only one previous modern Olympics on the books, the Paris

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Speaker 3: Games just proved to be such a disaster and often

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Speaker 3: hilarious disasters. We're going to see that. It's pretty remarkable

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Speaker 3: that everyone agreed to give it another go four years

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Speaker 3: later in Saint Louis, and even the founder of the

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Speaker 3: modern Games himself, Pierre Baron de Coupetin, later said quote,

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Speaker 3: it's a miracle the Olympic movement survived these games.

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Speaker 4: So we'll tell you just a few of the issues

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Speaker 4: as kind of a teaser here. For one thing, the

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Speaker 4: game stretched from May to October. I mean, can you

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Speaker 4: even imagine something like this no going on today. They

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Speaker 4: were so poorly organized as well and poorly promoted that

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Speaker 4: the athletes often didn't even realize they were competing in

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Speaker 4: the Olympics. And if you knew you were competing, it

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Speaker 4: wasn't because of the flashy venues and the high quality

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Speaker 4: equipment that you were working with. You were swimming in

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Speaker 4: the sun, you were competing in track and field events

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Speaker 4: throughout the woods and using old utility polls as hurdles.

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Speaker 4: So not exactly top of the line, not stuff going

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Speaker 4: on here.

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Speaker 3: So because of the odd circumstances that surround the nineteen

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Speaker 3: hundred Games, some sport historians don't even consider them Olympics

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Speaker 3: at all. They don't even consider them part of the

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Speaker 3: modern Olympic tradition, at least according to the Encyclopedia of

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Speaker 3: the Modern Olympic Movement. They're seen simply as sporting events

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Speaker 3: that were held as a side show for the Universal Exposition.

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Speaker 3: Still though, I mean, we're going to go ahead and

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Speaker 3: consider them real Olympics. And if we do that, the

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Speaker 3: Paris Games did include some pretty notable First one, it

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Speaker 3: was much larger than the first modern Games that had

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Speaker 3: been held in Athens, and the Paris Games attracted athletes

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Speaker 3: from more foreign nations than ever, so it was more

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Speaker 3: of an international event that the organizers were striving for.

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Speaker 4: It also featured the first women competitors, which was significant,

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Speaker 4: and it helped set the precedent for rotating the Games

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Speaker 4: between cities. But to really understand the bizarre side show

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Speaker 4: that was the nineteen hundred Games, it helps to go

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Speaker 4: back a little bit. So we're gonna take you back

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Speaker 4: to some other Olympics, way back. The ancient Olympics may

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Speaker 4: have their roots in Greek myth, but the first official

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Speaker 4: games were actually held in seven seventy six BC, So

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Speaker 4: after trekking on for centuries with foot races, chariot competitions,

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Speaker 4: and wrestling matches to the death. The games were banned

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Speaker 4: in three ninety three a d by Christian Emperor Theodosius

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Speaker 4: due to their polytheistic roots, and the history of the

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Speaker 4: modern games might lead you to believe that there was

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Speaker 4: then a lull of more than fifteen hundred years with

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Speaker 4: no games at all, but that's actually not quite accurate.

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Speaker 4: Athletic competitions, both local and national, which build themselves the

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Speaker 4: Olympics and took at least some Hellenic inspiration, are documented

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Speaker 4: as far back as the Renaissance.

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Speaker 3: It's a little known fact here. So we're just going

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Speaker 3: to give you some examples of these Olympic Games that

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Speaker 3: occurred in the meantime and some of the events they

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Speaker 3: featured too. Competitors in Robert Dover's Olympic Games, and that's

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Speaker 3: Olympic with a K added on. I really like that touch.

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Speaker 3: Those games started in sixteen twelve, and people would compete

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Speaker 3: in events based on their position in society, something that

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Speaker 3: seems pretty unusual, but maybe doesn't seem quite as strange

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Speaker 3: as if you look at it as a country fair,

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Speaker 3: that sort of thing. So gentry might compete in hunting

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Speaker 3: or even chess. Townspeople could wrestle or do something called

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Speaker 3: fighting at the barriers. Rural folk might participate in something

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Speaker 3: called cudgel play or shin kicking, tumbling, something called skittles,

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Speaker 3: or pipe and tabor music. So a varied repertoire of

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Speaker 3: activities for the rural folk.

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Speaker 4: Moving on to the nineteenth century, there was an explosion

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Speaker 4: in Olympic events. In the eighteen thirties. There were the

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Speaker 4: Olympic Games of ram Lursa with events like massed climbing,

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Speaker 4: and the much Winlock Olympian Games with sports like wheelbar racing,

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Speaker 4: plus some competition for the less athletically inclined, like a

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Speaker 4: knitting and a biblical history contest.

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Speaker 3: There was also Evangelist Sappus Olympics in Greece, a pretty

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Speaker 3: famous one which was heavily influenced by ancient traditions. Still, though,

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Speaker 3: it took Pierre Baron de Couberton, an enthusiastic supporter of

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Speaker 3: physical education in general, to draw inspiration from these different

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Speaker 3: local Olympic traditions and push for an international game something

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Speaker 3: more like how we think of the Olympics today. So

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Speaker 3: Kubertant had become an ardent supporter of reviving the Olympics

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Speaker 3: since he met with Englishman doctor William Penny Brooks in

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Speaker 3: eighteen ninety and Brooks had started the much win Lock

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Speaker 3: Olympian Games forty years earlier, and he had also corresponded

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Speaker 3: for years with evangelist Zappas had sort of incorporated some

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Speaker 3: of those Greek traditions that were going on into his

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Speaker 3: own games. But since the eighteen sixties, Brooks had been

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Speaker 3: really interested in promoting the idea of an international Games.

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Speaker 3: The problem was he just couldn't get that much interest

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Speaker 3: for it.

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Speaker 4: So after seeing the articles and ideas of the elderly Brooks,

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Speaker 4: coupertant took up the torch and went back to France

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Speaker 4: and pitched the idea himself at the Union d sport

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Speaker 4: Athletique in eighteen ninety two. He couched the event as

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Speaker 4: a diplomatic opportunity. He said, quote, let us export our oarsmen,

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Speaker 4: our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the

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Speaker 4: true free trade of the future, and the day it

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Speaker 4: is introduced into Europe, the cause of peace will have

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Speaker 4: received a new and strong ally.

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Speaker 3: Again. Though there just wasn't that much interest in this Coubertant, though,

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Speaker 3: was undeterred, and he tried to pitch his idea at

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Speaker 3: this Athletic Congress again in eighteen ninety four. This time

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Speaker 3: there was some success. He says that people probably just

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Speaker 3: went along with it for his benefit, but still they

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Speaker 3: went along with it, and Kubertant, being French, naturally suggested

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Speaker 3: that his hometown of Paris would be the perfect spot.

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Speaker 3: In nineteen hundred would be, you know, as a new century,

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Speaker 3: the perfect year to commence the modern Games after this

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Speaker 3: long lull.

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Speaker 4: Somehow, though both the date and the host city changed,

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Speaker 4: it was Athens that would host the inaugural games. Things

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Speaker 4: went well, both for Couberton and the new International Olympic Committee.

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Speaker 4: Though the Greek Prime Minister had initially refused to stage

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Speaker 4: the games, his successor was game to make this happen,

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Speaker 4: and the King of Greece opened the events on Greek

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Speaker 4: Independence Day in eighteen ninety six. There were athletes from

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Speaker 4: fourteen different countries international, just like they had hoped exactly.

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Speaker 4: The first medallist was American James Connolly, but the Greeks

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Speaker 4: took home their most COVID prize, first place in the marathon,

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Speaker 4: with more than one hundred thousand spectators showing up to

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Speaker 4: watch the race.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, due to the historical significance of the marathon, which

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Speaker 3: we've covered in an earlier episode on the Battle of Marathon,

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Speaker 3: you can understand why the Greeks really wanted that one.

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Speaker 3: Some of the events that these eighteen ninety six Olympics

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Speaker 3: sound a little bit risky today. For instance, Hungarian Alfred Hyos,

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Speaker 3: who won the one hundred meter and twelve hundred meter

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Speaker 3: swimming events, remembered being taken out to sea on a

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Speaker 3: boat and left to swim to shore. That was how

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Speaker 3: they were going to cover the long distance swimming, and

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Speaker 3: he said that quote his will to live completely overcame

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Speaker 3: his desire to win. I can understand that perspective too.

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Speaker 3: So even though there are some things that might seem

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Speaker 3: a little bit strange today, like that the first Olympics

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Speaker 3: were considered a success and the Greeks wanted to post

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Speaker 3: them permanently. They wanted to host the nineteen hundred Olympics

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Speaker 3: and on from there.

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Speaker 4: The IOC, however, the Olympic Committee they preferred rotating, especially

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Speaker 4: since the Greek Turkish war made a second Athens game

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Speaker 4: seem a little less appealing. Plus Paris, even without Kuberton's

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Speaker 4: hometown Boosterism, was due to host the nineteen hundred Universal Exposition.

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Speaker 4: A great opportunity to kind of double up on major crowds.

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Speaker 3: They're already, you've got the infrastructure. Seems like a perfect opportunity.

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Speaker 4: To double being operative word there exactly.

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Speaker 3: Really doubling up proved to be almost the undoing of

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Speaker 3: the Paris Games because it left no one definitively in charge.

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Speaker 3: Instead of being this special quadrennial celebration, the Olympics just

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Speaker 3: became a side show of the exposition, a fairground side show.

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Speaker 3: Part of the problem was that the French government was

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Speaker 3: already planning sporting expositions for the fair and remember this

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Speaker 3: is the early years of physical education, so it was

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Speaker 3: hoped that these public displays of sport, alongside other public

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Speaker 3: displays of indus and culture, would not only encourage folks

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Speaker 3: to get out there and move and exercise things we

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Speaker 3: might expect events like this to encourage today, but also

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Speaker 3: promote quote moral energy as well. According to the Encyclopedia

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Speaker 3: of the Modern Olympic Movement.

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Speaker 4: But as the IOC lost control to the French government,

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Speaker 4: the difference between the Olympic sporting displays and the non

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Speaker 4: Olympic displays became very unclear. As we already mentioned, some

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Speaker 4: athletes didn't even know that they had participated in the Olympics.

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Speaker 4: Their confusion was heightened by a couple things. For one thing,

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Speaker 4: the vast number of Olympic events. According to Olympic dot Org,

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Speaker 4: there were ninety five events and nine hundred and ninety

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Speaker 4: seven competitors from twenty four different countries. Another problem was

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Speaker 4: the extreme under promotion. That telltale word Olympics wasn't used

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Speaker 4: on event programs, so even though there were scores of

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Speaker 4: visitors in Paris for the Universal Exposition, the Olympic displays

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Speaker 4: were sometimes poorly attended, both by the press and spectators.

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Speaker 4: The women's croquet match, for example, had only one person

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Speaker 4: in attendance, an Englishman who had traveled from Nice specifically

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Speaker 4: for this event.

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Speaker 3: So I hope he enjoyed the show.

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Speaker 4: At least he got a good seat.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure he did so. Many of the events also

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Speaker 3: seem pretty bizarre today, aside from the whole organizational issue.

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Speaker 3: Some of them, like archery or equestrian were new to

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Speaker 3: the Games at the time but are normal now. They

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Speaker 3: seem like Olympic staples. Others like gymnastics were simply a

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Speaker 3: lot different from what we know today. In nineteen hundred,

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Speaker 3: gymnasts had to complete sixteen different movements, including lifting a

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Speaker 3: fifty kilogram stone, climbing a rope, and pole vaulting. So

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Speaker 3: I'm imagining the little, tiny teenage Olympians doing the things

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Speaker 3: like the pole vaulting and the fifty kilogram stone.

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Speaker 4: Interesting, what's weirder as an event like say tug of

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Speaker 4: war at the Olympics. Incidentally, tug of war was one

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Speaker 4: of the five sports where people from several nationalities competed

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Speaker 4: on the same team too, so.

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Speaker 3: More like a field day event.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, lots of strange stuff going on there, or strange

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Speaker 4: to us today. At least, swimming events included oddities like

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Speaker 4: an obstacle race where you would duck under boats. Doesn't

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Speaker 4: sound very safe.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but even traditional events got sort of an unusual

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Speaker 3: twist because of the venues that they were held in. So,

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Speaker 3: I mean, we all goggled at Beijing's stunning water cube

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Speaker 3: Aquatic Center during the two thousand and eight Games, but

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Speaker 3: competitors in the nineteen hundred Games had to do their

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Speaker 3: swimming competitions in the Seine, where currents would just create

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Speaker 3: these insane records. I mean, we were just talking about

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Speaker 3: the eighteen ninety six Games where you'd be towed out

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Speaker 3: to see, but swimming in a river wouldn't be much

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Speaker 3: easier either.

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Speaker 4: No, it would not. And there was also the fencing,

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Speaker 4: which at one event pitted teachers against students, so that

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Speaker 4: was one thing, but it was also held at the

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Speaker 4: Universal Expositions cut area, so almost as if there was

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Speaker 4: some sort of early Olympic marketing.

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Speaker 3: Except we know that couldn't be it, because they didn't

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Speaker 3: market anything.

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Speaker 4: Just easier access to somebody's joke. I guess it just

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Speaker 4: seemed to make logical sense to put it there. Track

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Speaker 4: and field events were held on the grass center of

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Speaker 4: a horse track, where there were mounds and dips, and

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Speaker 4: the straightaway headed off into the woods and was uphill,

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Speaker 4: so spectators trying to see the finishes would stand up

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Speaker 4: and they would actually interfere with the runners. The hurdles,

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Speaker 4: as we mentioned, were old utility poles, and jumpers had

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Speaker 4: to dig their own pits, and discus and hammer throwers

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Speaker 4: frequently hit trees. But worse than that, the Hungarian medallist

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Speaker 4: Rudolph Bauer actually had throws enter the crowd, according to

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Speaker 4: Tom Boreski and McLean's.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't see anything about those throws injuring someone,

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Speaker 3: which seems fairly miraculous.

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Speaker 4: But I would imagine he have meddled if he had

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Speaker 4: hurt somebody. But maybe so, I don't know, maybe I'm

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Speaker 4: wrong about that.

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Speaker 3: The marathon course was another bizarre case in this Olympics.

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Speaker 3: It went through the middle of Paris, but it was

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Speaker 3: so poorly supervised that many of the finishers accused the

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Speaker 3: three French victors of taking some secret shortcuts, something that

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Speaker 3: they backed up by the fact that the winners looked

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Speaker 3: pretty comfortable. They didn't look like they had just run

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Speaker 3: a marathon.

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Speaker 4: But everyone knows athletes are really the true stars of

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Speaker 4: the Games, and Paris in nineteen hundred had its fair

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Speaker 4: share of notable competitors too well. French athletes won the

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Speaker 4: majority of events, which wasn't surprising at all since they

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Speaker 4: were the only nation competing in several so there were

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Speaker 4: some events where they were the Frenchmen right, they were

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Speaker 4: the only ones competing. American Alvin kurnz Line became the

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Speaker 4: biggest name at the Games, he won the sixty meter,

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Speaker 4: the one hundred ten meter hurdles, and the two hundred

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Speaker 4: meter hurdles. He also won the long jump after his

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Speaker 4: teammate Meyer Prinstein, was forbidden to participate in the finals

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Speaker 4: by his university since they were to be held on Sunday,

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Speaker 4: even though prince Stein was Jewish. When Princelin won by

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Speaker 4: one centimeter, prince Stein was apparently so angry he punched

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Speaker 4: his teammate in the face.

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Speaker 3: Another strange athlete story, George Orton became the first Canadian

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Speaker 3: to medal eight years before Canada even sent a team

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Speaker 3: to the Games, and that's because Orton, who had been

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Speaker 3: attending University of Pennsylvania, where a lot of the American

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Speaker 3: track and field team members were based, just joined up

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Speaker 3: with their team. His first event, he came in last

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Speaker 3: place in the four hundred meter hurdles, but he still

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Speaker 3: meddled because there were only three competitors. An hour later, though,

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Speaker 3: he got kind of a more prestigious medal than that.

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Speaker 3: He won the steeplechase, which was considered his specialty, and

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Speaker 3: broke a world record, one of the six world records

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Speaker 3: broken at the Games.

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Speaker 4: Stan Rawley, who was an Australian track star one third

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Speaker 4: place in the sixty meter race, one hundred meters and

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Speaker 4: two hundred meter race. After his victories for Australia, then

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Speaker 4: the British got him to join their team for the

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Speaker 4: five thousand meter event since they were one man short.

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Speaker 4: Now Rowley had never run a distance race, but because

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Speaker 4: of the points scoring, all he actually had to do

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Speaker 4: was cross the finish line. In the end, he didn't

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Speaker 4: even have to do that. Race officials got so tired

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Speaker 4: of waiting for him that they automatically gave him last place,

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Speaker 4: which was enough for his team to win.

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Speaker 3: And I was a little amazed by this. Apparently he

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Speaker 3: was kind of walking, but five thousand meters, I can

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Speaker 3: see how a sprinter wouldn't be able to compete in that.

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Speaker 3: It's funny he took so long enough for them to

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Speaker 3: cancel it. So. Of the twenty two female competitors, though

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Speaker 3: British tennis player Charlotte Cooper was the first woman to

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Speaker 3: win an Olympic event. Margaret Abbott, though, I think, is

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Speaker 3: a particularly interesting case. She was just a Chicago girl

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Speaker 3: who was studying art in Paris and entered the golf

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Speaker 3: competition on a whim. And won. So not the sort

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Speaker 3: of traditional Olympic process you might expect today. But I

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Speaker 3: think the best athlete story has to be that of

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Speaker 3: an unnamed and unknown French boy. On August twenty sixth,

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Speaker 3: during the coaxed paar rowing event, the Dutch team needed

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Speaker 3: a replacement coxin and they drafted a French boy who

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Speaker 3: was believed to be somewhere around seven or was believed

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Speaker 3: to be somewhere around seven and twelve years old at

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Speaker 3: the time, and with this kid on their team, they

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Speaker 3: rode to victory. According to Olympic dot org, the French

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Speaker 3: kid did join in the ceremony. He was photographed, but

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Speaker 3: nobody got his name and years of research haven't been

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Speaker 3: able to uncover his identity. He's the lost Olympian.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 4: The thoroughly bizarre Paris Games closed October twenty eighth, nineteen hundred,

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Speaker 4: and even though they seem so disastrous, at least some

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Speaker 4: people were convinced by the Olympic message. A writer for

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Speaker 4: to Velo wrote November nineteen hundred that since the Games,

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Speaker 4: quote sport has definitely become a new religion. And in

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Speaker 4: nineteen oh four, the Saint Louis Olympics were again swallowed

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Speaker 4: up by a world's fair and went on for way

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Speaker 4: too long. Once again, four and a half months. Organizers

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Speaker 4: didn't even learn lessons from the disastrous Paris Marathon. American

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Speaker 4: Thomas Hicks won the gold after his teammate was disqualified

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Speaker 4: for driving most of the course. How do you even

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Speaker 4: do that?

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Speaker 3: It's nineteen oh four, I don't know still though, even

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Speaker 3: at that Games, the Saint Louis Games records were broken.

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Speaker 3: Archie Han, for instance, the Milwaukee Metior set a time

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Speaker 3: for the two hundred meter race that stood for twenty

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Speaker 3: eight years, and athletes again captured public attention. American George iSER,

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Speaker 3: for instance, won six medals in gymnastics even though he

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Speaker 3: had a wooden leg the nineteen oh eight London Games.

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Speaker 3: By that point things were beginning to look a little

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Speaker 3: bit more official. They finally trying to double them up

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Speaker 3: with these Worlds fare and by nineteen twelve with the

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Speaker 3: Stockholm Games, for the first time, teams from five continents competed.

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Speaker 4: Strangely, it may have been the Olympics cancelation during World

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Speaker 4: War One that really led to its ultimate endurance. During

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Speaker 4: that time, Kubertant worked on reshaping the game's identity, moving

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Speaker 4: its headquarters to Switzerland and promoting its ideology as quote,

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Speaker 4: the pursuit of peace and intercultural communication through international sport.

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Speaker 4: After the first post war Games held in Belgium in

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Speaker 4: nineteen twenty, the Olympic rings appeared for the first time,

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Speaker 4: and Coopertant retired from the IOC after seeing Paris finally

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Speaker 4: make good with the successful nineteen twenty four games.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and Cooperton Dublin and I were discussing this earlier

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Speaker 3: has an almost poetic end here. He died in nineteen

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Speaker 3: thirty seven, making his last game the nineteen thirty six

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Speaker 3: Berlin Olympics and sparing him too from seeing the two

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Speaker 3: games that were canceled during World War Two. He was

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Speaker 3: buried in Lausan, which is the Olympic headquarters, all except

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Speaker 3: for his heart, which was interred near the ruins of

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Speaker 3: ancient Olympia. Pretty fitting, it seems. His idea, though, is

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Speaker 3: I think a good point for us to close this

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Speaker 3: episode on. He hoped that the games would really inspire

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Speaker 3: international respect. That was the whole point of turning something

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Speaker 3: that clearly, as we've seen with these examples from the

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Speaker 3: earlier games from the Renaissance, was pretty common, turning it

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Speaker 3: into something that people from around the world could participate in.

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Speaker 3: And here's how he described it. To ask the peoples

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Speaker 3: of the world to love one another is childishness, but

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Speaker 3: to ask them to respect one another is not in

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Speaker 3: the least utopian. In order to respect one another, it

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Speaker 3: is first necessary to know one another through sport.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since

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Speaker 1: this episode is out of the archive, if you heard

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Speaker 1: an email address or a Facebook RL or something similar

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Speaker 1: over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now.

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Speaker 1: Our current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

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Speaker 1: You can find us all over social media at missed Inhistory,

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Speaker 1: favorite shows.