Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you missed in history class from house
Speaker 1: works dot com. Helloo, welcome to the podcast. I'm Sair
Speaker 1: Dowdy and I'm Deblin a Chruck reboarding and today. The
Speaker 1: Olympic Games seemed like such an institution that it's hard
Speaker 1: to believe they almost didn't make it pass their second
Speaker 1: time out in nineteen hundred. But of course, then, with
Speaker 1: only one previous modern Olympics on the books, the Paris
Speaker 1: Games just proved to be such a disaster and often
Speaker 1: hilarious disasters, we're going to see that. It's pretty remarkable
Speaker 1: that everyone agreed to give it another go four years
Speaker 1: later in St. Louis, and even the founder of the
Speaker 1: modern Games himself, Pierre baron De later said quote, it's
Speaker 1: a miracle the Olympic movement survived these games. So we'll
Speaker 1: tell you just a few of the issues as kind
Speaker 1: of a teaser here. For one thing, the games stretched
Speaker 1: from May to October. I mean, can you even imagine
Speaker 1: something like this going on today. They were so poorly
Speaker 1: organized as well and poorly promoted that the athletes often
Speaker 1: didn't even realize they were competing in the Olympics. And
Speaker 1: if you knew you were competing. It wasn't because of
Speaker 1: the flashy venues in the high quality equipment that you
Speaker 1: were working with. I mean, you were swimming in the sun,
Speaker 1: you were competing in track and field events throughout the
Speaker 1: woods and using old utility polls as hurdles. So not
Speaker 1: exactly top of the line stuff going on here. So,
Speaker 1: because of the odd circumstances that's around the nineteen hundred Games,
Speaker 1: some sport historians don't even consider them Olympics at all.
Speaker 1: They don't even consider them part of the modern Olympic tradition,
Speaker 1: at least according to the Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement.
Speaker 1: They're seen simply as sporting events that were held as
Speaker 1: a side show for the Universal Exposition. Still, though, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and consider them real Olympics, and
Speaker 1: if we do that, the Paris Games did include some
Speaker 1: pretty notal well. First one, it was much larger than
Speaker 1: the first modern Games that had been held in Athens,
Speaker 1: and the Paris Games attracted athletes from more foreign nations
Speaker 1: than ever, so it was more of an international event
Speaker 1: that the organizers were striving for, and also featured the
Speaker 1: first women competitors, which was significant and it helped set
Speaker 1: the precedent for rotating the games between cities. But to
Speaker 1: really understand the bizarre side show that was the games,
Speaker 1: it helps to go back a little bit. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna take you back to some other Olympics, way back.
Speaker 1: The ancient Olympics may have their roots in Greek myth,
Speaker 1: but the first official games were actually held in seven
Speaker 1: seventy six BC. So after trucking on for centuries with
Speaker 1: foot races, chariot competitions, and wrestling matches to the death,
Speaker 1: the games were banned in three D by Christian Emperor
Speaker 1: Theodocious due to their polytheistic roots, and the history of
Speaker 1: the modern games might lead you to believe that there
Speaker 1: was then a lull of more than fundred years with
Speaker 1: no games at all, but that's actually not quite accurate.
Speaker 1: Athletic competitions, both local and national, which build themselves the
Speaker 1: Olympics and took at least some Hellenic inspiration, are documented
Speaker 1: as far back as the Renaissance, a little known fact here.
Speaker 1: So we're just gonna give you some examples of these
Speaker 1: Olympic Games that occurred in the meantime and some of
Speaker 1: the events they featured. Two competitors in Robert Dover's Olympic Games,
Speaker 1: and that's Olympic with a K added on. I really
Speaker 1: like that touch. Those games started in sixteen twelve, and
Speaker 1: people would compete in events based on their position in society,
Speaker 1: something that seems pretty unusual but maybe doesn't seem quite
Speaker 1: as strange as if you look at it as a
Speaker 1: country fair that sort of thing. So gentry might compete
Speaker 1: in hunting or even chess. Townspeople could wrestle or do
Speaker 1: something called fighting at the barriers. Rural folk might participate
Speaker 1: in something called cudgel play, or in kicking, tumbling, something
Speaker 1: called skittles, or pipe and tabor music. So a varied
Speaker 1: repertoire of activities were for the rural folk. Moving on
Speaker 1: to the nineteenth century, there was an explosion in Olympic events.
Speaker 1: In the eighteen thirties. There were the Olympic Games of
Speaker 1: rum Lursa with events like mass climbing, and the much
Speaker 1: Weelock Olympian Games with sports like wheelbar racing, plus some
Speaker 1: competition for the less athletically inclined, like knitting and a
Speaker 1: biblical history contest. There was also evangelist Sappa's Olympics in Greece,
Speaker 1: the pretty famous one, which was heavily influenced by ancient traditions. Still, though,
Speaker 1: it took Pierre Baron de Couberton, an enthusiastic supporter of
Speaker 1: physical education in general, to draw inspiration from these different
Speaker 1: local Olympic traditions and push for an international game, something
Speaker 1: more like how we think of the Olympics today. So
Speaker 1: Coubert had become an ardent supporter of reviving the Olympics
Speaker 1: since he met with Englishman Dr William Penny brook in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety and Brooks had started the much Wenlock Olympian
Speaker 1: Games forty years earlier, and he had also corresponded for
Speaker 1: years with evangelist Appa's had sort of incorporated some of
Speaker 1: those Greek traditions that were going on into his own games.
Speaker 1: But since the eighteen sixties, Brooks had been really interested
Speaker 1: in promoting the idea of an international games. The problem
Speaker 1: was he just couldn't get that much interest for it.
Speaker 1: So after seeing the articles and ideas of the elderly Brooks,
Speaker 1: Cooperton took up the torch and went back to France
Speaker 1: and pitched the idea himself at the Union de sport
Speaker 1: Athletique in eighteen ninety two, he couched the event as
Speaker 1: a diplomatic opportunity. He said, quote, let us export our oarsmen,
Speaker 1: our runners are fencers into other lands. That is the
Speaker 1: true free trade of the future. And the day it
Speaker 1: is introduced into Europe, the cause of peace will have
Speaker 1: received a new and strong ally. Again, though there just
Speaker 1: wasn't that much interest in this. Couberton, though, was undeterred,
Speaker 1: and he tried to pitch his idea this Athletic Congress
Speaker 1: again in eighteen nine four. This time there was some success.
Speaker 1: He says that people probably just went along with it
Speaker 1: for his benefit, but still they went along with it,
Speaker 1: and Kuberton, being French, naturally suggested that his hometown of
Speaker 1: Paris would be the perfect spot. In nineteen hundred would be,
Speaker 1: you know, as a new century, the perfect year to
Speaker 1: commence the modern Games after this long lull. Somehow, though
Speaker 1: both the date and the host city changed, it was
Speaker 1: Athens that would host the inaugural Games. Things went well,
Speaker 1: both for Cuberton and the new International Olympic Committee. Though
Speaker 1: the Greek Prime Minister had initially refused to stage the games,
Speaker 1: his successor was game for to make this happen. And
Speaker 1: the King of Greece opened the events on Greek Independence
Speaker 1: Day in eighteen. There were athletes from four teen different
Speaker 1: countries international, just like they had hoped exactly. The first
Speaker 1: medalist was American James Connolly, but the Greeks took home
Speaker 1: their most coveted prize, first place in the marathon, with
Speaker 1: more than one hundred thousand spectators showing up to watch
Speaker 1: the race. Yeah, due to the historical significance of the marathon,
Speaker 1: which we've covered in an earlier episode on the Battle
Speaker 1: of Marathon, you can understand why the Greeks really wanted
Speaker 1: that one. Some of the events that these Olympics sound
Speaker 1: a little bit risky today. For instance, Hungarian Alfred Hios,
Speaker 1: who won the one hundred meter and twelve swimming events,
Speaker 1: remembered being taken out to see on a boat and
Speaker 1: left to swim to shore. That was how they were
Speaker 1: going to cover the long distance swimming, and he said
Speaker 1: that quote his will to live completely overcame his desire
Speaker 1: to win. I can understand that perspective too. So even
Speaker 1: though there are some things that might seem a little
Speaker 1: bit strange today, like that the first Olympics were considered
Speaker 1: a success and the Greeks wanted to post them permanently.
Speaker 1: They wanted to host the nineteen hundred Olympics and on
Speaker 1: from there the IOC. However, the Olympic Committee they preferred rotating,
Speaker 1: especially since the Greek Turkish war made a second Athens
Speaker 1: game seem a little less appealing. Plus, Paris, even without
Speaker 1: Kuberton's hometown boosterism, was due to host the nineteen hundred
Speaker 1: Universal Exposition. A great opportunity to kind of double up
Speaker 1: on major crowds. They're already, you've got the infrastructure. Seems
Speaker 1: like a perfect opportunity to being operative. Word, they're exactly
Speaker 1: really Doubling up proved to be almost the undoing of
Speaker 1: the Paris Games because it left no one definitively in charge.
Speaker 1: Instead of being this special quadrennial celebration, the Olympics just
Speaker 1: became a sideshow of the exposition, a fairground side show.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem was that the French government was
Speaker 1: already planning sporting expositions for the fair and remember this
Speaker 1: is the early years of physical education, so it was
Speaker 1: hoped that these public displays of sport, alongside other public
Speaker 1: displays of industry and culture, would not only encourage folks
Speaker 1: to get out there and move and exercise things. We
Speaker 1: might expect events like this to encourage today, but also
Speaker 1: promote quote moral energy as well, according to the Encyclopedia
Speaker 1: of the Modern Olympic Movement. But as the IOC lost
Speaker 1: control to the French government, the difference between the Olympic
Speaker 1: sporting displays and the non Olympic displays became very unclear.
Speaker 1: As we already mentioned, some athletes didn't even know that
Speaker 1: they had participated in the Olympics. Their confusion was heightened
Speaker 1: by a couple of things. For one thing, the vast
Speaker 1: number of Olympic events. According to Olympic dot org there
Speaker 1: were events and nine competitors from twenty four different countries.
Speaker 1: Another problem was the extreme under promotion. That telltale word
Speaker 1: Olympics wasn't you used on event programs. So even though
Speaker 1: there were scores of visitors in Paris for the Universal Exposition,
Speaker 1: the Olympic displays were sometimes poorly attended, both by the
Speaker 1: press and spectators. The women's croquet match, for example, had
Speaker 1: only one person in attendance, an Englishman who had traveled
Speaker 1: from Nice specifically for this event. So I hope he
Speaker 1: enjoyed the show. At least he got a good seat.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he did so. Many of the events also
Speaker 1: seem pretty bizarre today, aside from the whole organizational issue.
Speaker 1: Some of them, like archery or equestrian were new to
Speaker 1: the Games at the time, but are normal now. They
Speaker 1: seem like Olympic staples. Others, like gymnastics, were simply a
Speaker 1: lot different from what we know today. In nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: gymnasts had to complete sixteen different movements, including lifting a
Speaker 1: fifty kilogram stone, climbing a rope, and pole vaulting. So
Speaker 1: I'm imagining the little little, tiny teenage Olympians doing the
Speaker 1: thing like the pole vaulting in the fifty kim stone? Interesting?
Speaker 1: What's weirder as an event like say tug of war
Speaker 1: at the Olympics. Incidentally, tug of war was one of
Speaker 1: the five sports where people from several nationalities competed on
Speaker 1: the same team too, so like a field day event. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of strange stuff going on there are strange to
Speaker 1: us today. At least, swimming events included oddities like an
Speaker 1: obstacle race where you would duck under boats. Doesn't sound
Speaker 1: very safe. Yeah, but even traditional events got sort of
Speaker 1: an unusual twist because of the venues that they were
Speaker 1: held in. So I mean we all goggled at beijing
Speaker 1: stunning watercube Aquatic Center during the two thousand eight Games,
Speaker 1: but competitors in the nineteen hundred Games had to do
Speaker 1: their swimming competitions in the then, where currents would just
Speaker 1: create these insane records. I mean, we were just talking
Speaker 1: about the Games where you'd be towed out to see,
Speaker 1: but swimming in a river wouldn't be much easier either, No,
Speaker 1: it would not. And there was also the fencing, which
Speaker 1: at one event pitted teachers against students, so that was
Speaker 1: one thing, but it was also held at the Universal
Speaker 1: Expositions Cutlery area, so almost as if there was some
Speaker 1: sort of early Olympic marketing. Couldn't be it because they
Speaker 1: didn't market anything, right, Just easier access, to guess, just
Speaker 1: seemed to make logical sense to put it there. Track
Speaker 1: and field events were held on the grass center of
Speaker 1: a horse track where there were mounds and dips, and
Speaker 1: the straightaway headed off into the woods and was uphill,
Speaker 1: so spectators trying to see the finishes would stand up
Speaker 1: and they would actually interfere with the runners the hurdles
Speaker 1: as we mentioned were old utility poles and jumpers had
Speaker 1: to dig their own pit and discuss, and hammer throwers
Speaker 1: frequently hit tree just wasn't enough room. But worse than that,
Speaker 1: the Hungarian medalist Rudolf Bauer actually had throws enter the crowd.
Speaker 1: According to Ambarrewski and the Cleans, Yeah, I didn't see
Speaker 1: anything about those throws injuring someone, which seems fairly miraculous.
Speaker 1: But I would imagine he wouldn't know meddled if he
Speaker 1: had hurt somebody. But maybe so, I don't know, may
Speaker 1: I'm wrong about that of The marathon course was another
Speaker 1: bizarre case in this Olympics. It went through the middle
Speaker 1: of Paris, but it was so poorly supervised that many
Speaker 1: of the finishers accused the three French victors of taking
Speaker 1: some secret shortcut, something that they backed up by the
Speaker 1: fact that the winners looked pretty comfortable. They didn't look
Speaker 1: like they had just run a marathon. But everyone knows
Speaker 1: athletes are really the true stars of the Games, and
Speaker 1: Paris and nineteen hundred had its fair share of notable
Speaker 1: competitors too well. French athletes won the majority of events,
Speaker 1: which wasn't surprising at all since they were the only
Speaker 1: nation competing in several so there were some events where
Speaker 1: they were right they were the only ones competing. American
Speaker 1: Alvin Kruntzline became the biggest name at the Games. He
Speaker 1: won the team meter, the one meter hurdles, and the
Speaker 1: two hundred meter hurdles. He also won the long jump
Speaker 1: after his teammate and Meyer prince Stein, was forbidden to
Speaker 1: participate in the finals by his university since they were
Speaker 1: to be held on Sunday, even though prince Stein was Jewish.
Speaker 1: When prince Line won by one centimeter, prince Stein was
Speaker 1: apparently so angry he punched his teammate in the face.
Speaker 1: Another strange athlete story, George Orton became the first Canadian
Speaker 1: to medal eight years before Canada even sent a team
Speaker 1: to the Games. And that's because Orton, who had been
Speaker 1: attending University of Pennsylvania, where a lot of the American
Speaker 1: track and field team members were based, just joined up
Speaker 1: with their team. His first event, he came in last
Speaker 1: place in the four hurdles, but he still meddled because
Speaker 1: there were only three competitors. An hour later, though, he
Speaker 1: got kind of a more prestigious medal than that. He
Speaker 1: won the steeple chase, which was considered his specialty, and
Speaker 1: broke a world record, one of the six world records
Speaker 1: open at the game. Stan Raleigh, who was an Australian
Speaker 1: track star, one third place in the sixty race, a
Speaker 1: hundred meters and two hundred meter race. After his victories
Speaker 1: for Australia, then the British got him to join their
Speaker 1: team for the five thousand meter event since they were
Speaker 1: one man short. Now Raleigh had never run a distance race,
Speaker 1: but because of the points scoring, all he actually had
Speaker 1: to do was cross the finish line. In the end,
Speaker 1: he didn't even have to do that. Race officials got
Speaker 1: so tired of waiting for him that they automatically gave
Speaker 1: him last place, which was enough for his team to win.
Speaker 1: And I was a little amazed by this. Apparently he
Speaker 1: was kind of walking, but five thousand meters, I can
Speaker 1: see how a sprinter wouldn't be able to compete in that.
Speaker 1: It's funny he took the long enough for them to
Speaker 1: cancel it. So of the twenty two female competitors, though
Speaker 1: British tennis player Charlotte Cooper was the first woman to
Speaker 1: win an Olympic event, Margaret Abbott though I think is
Speaker 1: a particularly interesting case. She was just a Chicago girl
Speaker 1: who was studying art in Paris and entered the golf
Speaker 1: competition on a whim and one so not the sort
Speaker 1: of traditional Olympic process you might expect today. But I
Speaker 1: think the best athletes story has to be that of
Speaker 1: an unnamed and unknown French boy. On August, during the
Speaker 1: coaxed pair rowing event, the Dutch team needed a replacement
Speaker 1: coxin and they drafted a French boy who was believed
Speaker 1: to be somewhere around seven or or was believed to
Speaker 1: be somewhere around seven and twelve years old at the time,
Speaker 1: and with this kid on their team, they rode to victory,
Speaker 1: and according to Olympic dot org, the French kid did
Speaker 1: join in the ceremony. He was photographed, but nobody got
Speaker 1: his name. In years of research haven't been able to
Speaker 1: uncover his identity. He's the lost Olympian. Well. The thoroughly
Speaker 1: bizarre Paris Games closed October dred and even though they
Speaker 1: seem so disastrous, at least some people were convinced by
Speaker 1: the Olympic message. A writer for Ltevello wrote November nineteen
Speaker 1: hundred that since the game's quote, sport has definitely become
Speaker 1: a new religion. And in nineteen o four the St.
Speaker 1: Louis Olympics were again swallowed up by a world's fair
Speaker 1: and went on for way too long. Once again four
Speaker 1: and a half months. Organizers didn't even learn lessons from
Speaker 1: the disastrous Paris Marathon. American Thomas Hicks won the gold
Speaker 1: after his teammate was disqualified for driving most of the course.
Speaker 1: How do you even do that? It's nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Still though, even at that Games, the St.
Speaker 1: Louis Games records were broken. Archie Han, for instance, the
Speaker 1: Milwaukee meteor set a time for the two race that
Speaker 1: stood for twenty eight years, and athletes again captured public attention.
Speaker 1: American George iSER, for instance, won six medals in gymnastics,
Speaker 1: even though he had a wooden leg uh the nineteen
Speaker 1: o eight London Games. By that point things were beginning
Speaker 1: to look a little bit more official. They finally stopped
Speaker 1: trying to double them up with these worlds there, and
Speaker 1: by nineteen twelve, with the Stockholm Games, for the first time,
Speaker 1: teams from five continents competed. Strangely, it may have been
Speaker 1: the Olympics cancelation during World War One that really led
Speaker 1: to its ultimate endurance. During that time, Couberton worked on
Speaker 1: reshaping the game's identity, moving its headquarters to Switzerland, and
Speaker 1: promoting its ideology as quote, the pursuit of peace and
Speaker 1: intercultural communication through international sport. After the first post war Games,
Speaker 1: held in Belgium in nineteen twenty, the Olympic rings appeared
Speaker 1: for the first time, and Couberton retired from the IOC
Speaker 1: after seeing Paris finally made good with the successful nineteen
Speaker 1: four games. Yeah and Cooperton, Deblan and I were discussing
Speaker 1: this earlier has an almost poetic end here. He died
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven, making his last game the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty six Berlin Olympics and sparing him too from seeing
Speaker 1: the two games that were canceled during World War Two.
Speaker 1: He was buried in Lausan, which is the Olympic headquarters,
Speaker 1: all except for his heart, which was interred near the
Speaker 1: ruins of ancient Olympia. Pretty fitting, it seems. His idea, though,
Speaker 1: is I think a good point for us to close
Speaker 1: this episode on. He hoped that the games would really
Speaker 1: inspire international respect. That was the whole point of turning
Speaker 1: something that clearly, as we've seen with these examples from
Speaker 1: the earlier games from the Renaissance, was pretty common, turning
Speaker 1: it into something that people from around the world could
Speaker 1: participate in. And here's how he described it. To ask
Speaker 1: the peoples of the world to love one another is childishness,
Speaker 1: but to ask them to respect one another is not
Speaker 1: in the least utopian. In order to respect one another,
Speaker 1: it is first necessary to know one another through sport.
Speaker 1: Just one final note on the strangeness of the Paras Olympics.
Speaker 1: The Paris medals were rectangular. I mean, come on, Paris
Speaker 1: like rectangular medals. I guess I shouldn't really judge. They
Speaker 1: only had one previous metal shape too to go on
Speaker 1: at that point, but it is very funny today. If
Speaker 1: you look at a slide show which you can find
Speaker 1: online of Olympic medals, there are a lot of round
Speaker 1: medals and then there's this rectangular one. So I think
Speaker 1: that's a good time to bring us to listener meal.
Speaker 1: So we got a message from Arena in Toronto and
Speaker 1: she was writing about the Freya of Arabia episode and
Speaker 1: she said that the timing of that episode turned out
Speaker 1: quite perfectly for me. So I thought I should share
Speaker 1: this with you. My brothers and I bought my mom
Speaker 1: and iPod for Mother's Day, and I loaded it up
Speaker 1: with lots of stuff, including your podcast and the recent
Speaker 1: episode on Freya of Arabia. The next day, I listened
Speaker 1: to the episode at home and couldn't believe the timing.
Speaker 1: The gift for our mom was also a going away present,
Speaker 1: as she is heading out tomorrow for a three week
Speaker 1: trip to Israel. She hasn't been to Israel since the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and more than one person raised an eyebrow
Speaker 1: at the idea of a woman in her fifties spending
Speaker 1: three weeks completely by herself in the Middle East. What
Speaker 1: a perfect coincidence that the first episode of Yours she'll
Speaker 1: hear on the plane over there is the story of Freya,
Speaker 1: who had people telling her the very same. Although my
Speaker 1: mom won't be doing anything extreme like crossing borders in
Speaker 1: secret or exploring harems, I couldn't help but smile at
Speaker 1: the thought of Freya's adventurous spirit living on in women
Speaker 1: like my mom. I'm sure she'll have the time of
Speaker 1: her life exploring such a fascinating part of the world.
Speaker 1: Go Mom, that's cool. So thank you Rena for writing
Speaker 1: in and I hope your mom had an awesome trip
Speaker 1: and did take a little inspiration from Freya. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we all could. Yeah, I'm taking a little inspiration from
Speaker 1: your mom. I think that's pretty cool. We have another
Speaker 1: note here from Laura. She says, as a home educating mom,
Speaker 1: I use your podcast for my own background knowledge, but
Speaker 1: I also love to share them with my oldest daughter,
Speaker 1: because of these podcasts is a big history buff. Listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast is her favorite audio, which is a compliment.
Speaker 1: Whoever heard of a teenage girl preferring history to Justin Bieber.
Speaker 1: I honestly have to say I didn't know, Laura, that
Speaker 1: there was so much competition out there, such stiff competition.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, that we were considering Justin Bieber
Speaker 1: one of our competitors. I know if I knew that,
Speaker 1: I'd be a lot more nervous coming in here. Well,
Speaker 1: but thanks for writing and we love to first of all,
Speaker 1: just here when people are using our podcasts as part
Speaker 1: of education, and you know, we love to hear that
Speaker 1: you can bring family members together. So so we have
Speaker 1: to mother daughter um to mother daughter listener meals that's
Speaker 1: our common theme for this, so thank you both for
Speaker 1: writing in. If you guys want to share anything with us,
Speaker 1: where at History Podcasts at Discovery dot com. We're also
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Myston History and on Facebook. And if
Speaker 1: you want to learn a little bit more about previous
Speaker 1: games and some of the strange or sports editions that
Speaker 1: we discussed today, we have an article on our site
Speaker 1: called ten Bizarre Olympic Events and you can find that
Speaker 1: by searching for the Olympics on our homepage, which is
Speaker 1: www dot how stuff works dot com. H for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com.