Olympics: The Eighth Olympic Games

OLYMPICS: THE EIGHTH OLYMPIC GAMES

Birth of the American Olympic Association

To honor retiring International Olympic Committee Chairman Baron de Coubertin, the man responsible for proposing the modern Olympic Games in the early 1890s, the Eighth Olympics were held in Paris in July 1924. To resolve a power struggle among organizations hoping to direct the U.S. team, the American Olympic Association—composed of representatives from the competing groups—was created on 25 November 1921 as a permanent controlling board for American Olympic teams.

High Olympic Spirits

With funding of $350,000, the 417-member American team departed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 16 June on the luxurious S.S. America. The experience of the 1924 team was the antithesis of that of the 1920 team. Spirits and morale were high on the way to the games and were further buoyed by American successes.

Outstanding American Performances

The U.S. track-and-field team won twelve gold medals, more than any other team at the Paris Olympics, yet the 1924 Olympics belonged to two athletes, Finland's Paavo Nurmi, a distance runner who won four events, and America's Johnny Weissmuller, who claimed three gold medals in swimming. Weissmuller took the 100-meter in 59 seconds, an Olympic record, and in the process beat the two-time defending champion, Duke Kahanamoku. He also finished the 400-meter freestyle in 5 minutes 4.2 seconds, bettering the previous Olympic record by a full twenty seconds. He was, in addition, a member of the 4 x 200 (800-meter) relay team—with Ralph Breyer, Wallace O'Connor, and Harry Glancy—who won their event in 9 minutes 53.4 seconds. An All-American water polo player, Weissmuller also won a bronze medal as a member of the U.S. water polo team.

More Records and Gold

Although two American favorites, Jackson Scholz and Charles Paddock, were beaten in the 100-meter race by Great Britain's Harold Abrahams (his story became the basis of the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire), the American track-and-field team made a strong showing. Harold Osborn and Clarence "Bud" Houser emerged as stars for the United States. Osborn leaped 6 feet 515/l6 inches in the high jump, an Olympic record that stood for twelve years. He became the only man to win a gold medal for the decathlon and for an individual event. Houser won gold medals in the discus throw and shot put. Lee Barnes, a seventeen-year-old California highschool student, won the pole vault event. Ben Spock, the seventh rower on the Yale crew that won the eight-oar event, later gained fame as Dr. Benjamin Spock, the author of childcare books.

Other Key Winners

Swimmer Gertrude Ederle won a gold meal as a member of the U.S. 400-meter relay team and two bronze medals for her third places in the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle events. In 1926 Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel. The tennis stars Helen Wills and Vincent Richards were standouts on a U.S. team that swept all five tennis titles. The 1924 games were the last in which tennis appeared as an Olympic event until 1988. Fidel LaBarba, the most gifted American boxer, won the flyweight division and then turned professional and soon became the world's flyweight champion.

First Separate Winter Olympic Games

The first Winter Olympic Games were held from 25 January through 4 February at Chamonix, France, with sixteen nations entering a total of three hundred athletes, including eleven-year-old Norwegian skater Sonja Henie, who finished last in her competition. American skaters and skiers fared poorly, though the U.S. hockey team finished second to Canada.

Sources:

James Coote, A Picture History of the Olympics (New York: Macmillan, 1972);

Richard Schaap, An Illustrated History of the Olympics, second edition (New York: Knopf, 1967);

Alexander M. Weyand, The Olympic Pageant (New York: Macmillan, 1952).