Olympic Games

OLYMPIC GAMES

The Selection of Stockholm

In 1896 the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, the site of the original games. Subsequent Olympic Games were hosted by Paris in 1900, Saint Louis in 1904, and London in 1908. These Olympic Games were held in conjunction with World's Fairs, events that often overshadowed the athletic contests. Meeting in Berlin in 1909, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Stockholm, Sweden, as the site of the fifth Olympic Games. "Of all the countries in the world," remarked Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement and secretary-general of the IOC, "Sweden is at the moment best qualified to host a great Olympic Games." Although Stockholm's award was largely because of a strong campaign by Sweden's longtime IOC representative, Col. Victor Balak, who would become the chairman of the Swedish Olympic Organizing Committee, Germany ensured the selection of the Swedish capital by withdrawing Berlin as a candidate for the host city. In order to hold the Olympic Games in Stockholm, however, the IOC dropped boxing from its schedule of events, because Sweden prohibited the sport.

The Swedish Success

The Games of the fifth Olympiad, according to historian John Lucas, were "the best organized and most pacific international games since the original Athens' celebration." Held from 5 May to 22 July, the Stockholm Olympics were the largest since the revival of the Games in 1896, with 2,490 athletes from twenty-eight nations participating. Sweden, the host nation, finished as the unofficial team champion with sixty-five medals—twenty-four gold, twenty-four silver, and seventeen bronze. The United States finished second to the Swedes, garnering sixty-one medals, of which twenty-three were gold, nineteen silver, and nineteen bronze. Great Britain, the team champion of the 1908 Olympic Games held in London, was third with forty-one medals—ten gold, fifteen silver, and sixteen bronze. Scandinavian athletes, on the whole, performed well in the 1912 games. Swedish athletes, who won medals in nearly all sports, were particularly strong in the triple jump, cross-country, equestrian, modern pentathlon, shooting, diving, Greco-Roman wrestling, and yachting. Finnish runners initiated their pre-World War II dominance in long distance events.

American Triumphs

As in previous Olympic Games, American athletes dominated track and field. Ralph Craig of the University of Michigan won both the 100 meters, leading an American medal sweep, and the 200 meters. Syracuse University's Charles Reidpath won the 400 meters in an Olympic record of 48.2 seconds. James Meredith, a prep-school runner from Pennsylvania, captured the 800 meters in a world record of 1:51.9, narrowly defeating countrymen Melvin Sheppard and Ira Davenport by a hundredth of a second. Louis Tewanima, a Hopi Indian, finished second to Finland's Johannes Kolehmainen in the 10,000 meters. Jim Thorpe, a Native American of Sac and Fox descent, won the decathlon and pentathlon events. Americans swept the medals in the 110-meter high hurdles, pole vault, and shot put. Hawaiian swimmer Duke Kahanamoku won the 100-meter freestyle, his first of five Olympic medals spread over four Olympic Games. Americans performed surprisingly well in shooting, winning four gold medals, three silver, and one bronze. In the three-day equestrian team event, Americans won the bronze medal. American cyclists also won bronze in the individual and team road races.

Furor over Women's Aquatics

The IOC expanded women's sports to include swimming and diving at the 1912 games. Many in the United States and Australia opposed this expansion of women's events on the Olympic schedule. James E. Sullivan, the head of the AAU in the United States, opposed women's sports altogether, and did not permit American female swimmers and divers to compete in Stockholm. Australian feminist Rose Scott opposed female participation in swimming and diving because, as historian Allen Guttmann put it, she "feared that the presence of shapely young women in swimsuits might attract more voyeurs than sports spectators." Scott's protests aside, Australian women went to Stockholm and returned with the gold and silver medals in the 100-meter freestyle. Sarah Durack, the gold medalist, won the event in a world record of 1:22.2. In the 4-by-100-meter freestyle relay the British won in a world record of 5:52.8. Greta Johansson and Lisa Regnell, both of Sweden, dueled in platform diving, with Johansson gaining the gold and Regnell the silver. Despite the pre-Olympic furor over the women's swimming and diving events, Everett C. Brown, an AAU associate of Sullivan, viewed and approved of the new events, noting that any criticism of them must "have been brought about by foul minds."

Berlin Plans for the 1916 Games

In 1909, when the IOC met in Berlin and decided upon Stockholm as the site for the 1912 Olympic Games, it also told the German Olympic Committee to "begin serious planning for the 1916 Olympic celebration." This announcement inspired the Germans to make Berlin the ultimate site for the Olympic Games. Since 1896, when the German Olympic Committee had returned from the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, they had campaigned vigorously to host the event in Berlin. Immediately upon learning that the German capital would most likely be the site for the Games of the sixth Olympiad, the Berliners started construction of a thirty-four-thousand-seat stadium, complete with a four-hundred-meter running track and six-hundred-meter cycling track, as well as a one-hundred-meter swimming pool with a gallery for four thousand spectators. In 1911 the IOC announced officially that Berlin would host the 1916 Olympic Games, but national elation turned into disappointment after German athletes failed to perform well in the 1912 Olympic Games. In response, the Germans visited the United States to study military and collegiate athletic training systems. They hired Alvin C. Kraenzlein, a German American who coached track at the University of Michigan and an Olympic gold medalist from 1900, to prepare German Olympians. Once in Germany, Kraenzlein told The New York Times in 1913 that German "life could only benefit from the healthy enthusiasm and rivalry found in athletic competition and Olympic sports."

The Games Canceled by war

In addition to unfurling the five-ringed flag that has come to symbolize the Olympic Games, the IOC finalized the program for the 1916 Olympic Games at the 1914 IOC convention. After the convention Robert Thompson, the president of the American Olympic Committee, remarked that "the Berlin Games would be the greatest ever held," because of the thoroughness of the Germans' organization and preparation. Less than a month after Thompson made that remark, war broke out in Europe. Germany, allied with Austria-Hungary, declared war on Russia and France. Coubertin believed that the Germans, as the host nation for the 1916 Olympic Games, would sue for a peaceful end to the war, but Germany soon invaded Belgium, and Great Britain entered the war against the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Anticipating a quick end to the conflict, the German Olympic Committee continued to prepare for the Games, but other national Olympic Committees urged Coubertin to change the venue for the Games. In a letter to The New York Times in j 1915 Coubertin stated his position: "The Sixth Olympic Games remain and will remain credited to Berlin, but it is possible that they will not be held." With European civilization on the brink of destruction during the summer of 1916, Berlin's Olympic Games were canceled.

Sources:

John Findling and Kimberly Pele, eds., The Historical Dictionary of the Olympic Games (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996);

Allen Guttmann, The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994);

David Wallechinsky, The Complete Book of the Olympics, revised edition (New York: Viking, 1988).