Paris 1900 Summer Olympics

At the first congress of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, it was decided - at the request of the IOC president, the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin - that the 1900 Olympic Games should be held in Paris as part of the World Exhibition in that city. Coubertin had thought that the World Exhibition could help to profile the Olympic movement, but it turned out to be exactly the opposite [1].

The period around the turn of the century was the time of the great world exhibitions. Here, nations proudly displayed the latest advances in science, technology and culture in large-scale settings, and in 1900 it was Paris that organized the World Exhibition. After the defeat by Prussia in 1870, France had experienced a turbulent period under the Third Republic, most recently tormented by the embarrassing Dreyfus affair in the late 1890s. France needed to show itself to the world, and the World Exhibition was part of this strategy. On an area of 100 hectares, the exhibition was visited by 48 million people from April to November. The Olympic Games had to find its place in this gigantic event.

The Olympic competitions were included in the overall program of the World Exhibition without a clear Olympic focus. This meant that the Games were spread over a period of almost six months. Furthermore, the Olympic competitions were disrupted by the fact that a lot of ​​other competitions were organized in connection with the World Exhibition in many other things than sports. This has led to a disagreement between Olympic historians to this day about which competitions were Olympic and which were not. After the Olympics, many athletes were in doubt as to whether they had participated in the Olympic Games or not [2].

The Games in Paris were attended by approximately 1000 athletes from 24 countries. Professionals were allowed to participate in some sports, including fencing, and cash prizes were also awarded in some sports. The winners of the Olympic competitions generally did not receive medals, but other forms of trophies.

In five sports (tennis, football, polo, rowing and tug-of-war), pairs or teams composed of athletes from several nations participated.

There was no actual Olympic stadium at the 1900 Games that could act as a unifying framework for the Olympic competitions. For example, the athletics competitions were held together in July in the Bois de Boulogne, the swimming took place in the Seine in August, and the cycling and football were held in September in the Paris area.

It is also worth noting that the 1900 Olympics marked the first time that women's competitions were organised - although only in three sports: croquet, golf and tennis. A French pair in croquet, Brohy and Onier, were the first women to compete in an Olympic competition. The first female Olympic champion in history was Charlotte Cooper from Great Britain in tennis.

Athletics without a stadium

The athletics competitions at the Paris Olympics were held from mid-July on the Racing Club de France's tracks in the Bois de Boulogne. There were no paved running tracks here, and the running disciplines were held on an uneven grass surface. The marked running track was 500 m long and passed through a small grove of small trees. The trees in the forest greatly hindered the throwing disciplines. This was particularly bad in the discus throw, where the Olympic champion from Athens 1896, the American Robert Garrett, had to see all three of his throws land in the treetops. These were completely abnormal conditions for Olympic athletics athletes of the time [3].

In addition to the Olympic competitions, a number of other competitions were also held at the athletics meet, including competitions for professionals. 117 athletes from seventeen countries participated in the 23 disciplines that can reasonably be said to be Olympic. The United States was the clearly dominant nation, and the Americans were victorious in 16 of the 23 disciplines.

The French organizers had arranged the program so that there would also be competition on Sunday, August 15. This led to significant protests, especially from the American participants, many of whom came from colleges and clubs controlled by church authorities. A compromise was worked out, but it failed, and the program was maintained.

This became significant in the long jump competition, where the world record holder, the American Meyer Prinstein, a Russian-born Jew and thus unavailable on Sunday, only participated in the Saturday qualifying round, but not in the Sunday final. His jump in the qualifying round was enough to secure him second place overall in the competition, as results from the qualifying round could be carried over to the final at that time. Another American, Alwin Kraenzlein, finished as Olympic champion in the competition [4].

Results Long Jump M - Paris 1900 ⮞

Kraenzlein became the most successful athlete at the Paris Olympics. In addition to winning the long jump, he also won the 60 m race and the two hurdles over 110 m and 200 m. He thus won four individual Olympic championships in athletics at the same Olympics, a record that has not yet been surpassed at the time of writing.

One of the most successful athletes in Olympic history, the American Raymond Ewry, began his Olympic career in Paris. He won three Olympic championships in the disciplines of high jump, long jump and triple jump, but in all three jumps in the special variant without a run-up. Ewry would show his total dominance in these special disciplines over the next two Olympic Games.

Result Standing long jump M - Paris 1900 ⮞

The Paris Marathon was run on one of the hottest days of the summer. The temperature was around 39 degrees when thirteen runners set off on the 40 km long route, which started and finished in the Bois de Boulogne and otherwise ran through the streets of Paris. Despite the temperature, the race was started in the afternoon during the hottest hours of the day. The heat was probably the main reason why only seven runners completed the race.

The organization of the race was criticized. The route was poorly marked, and in many cases, participants ran the wrong way and had to run back to a known point. The control of the runners’ routes was almost non-existent, and in many places the runners were mixed with regular traffic.

The Frenchman Georges Touquet-Daunis led the first half of the race. Along the way, he stopped at a café where he had a few beers and decided that it was too hot to run any further. About halfway through the race, another Frenchman, 22-year-old Michel Theato, took the lead, and he held his lead until the finish line, where he won the race in a time of just under three hours. Theato's compatriot Emile Champion came in second a few minutes behind Theato, and Swede Ernst Fast came in third about 40 minutes behind Theato [5].

Result Marathon M - Paris 1900 ⮞

The American favorite Arthur Newton, who finished fifth, claimed after the race that he had passed everyone else on the course, including Theato, which is why he believed he had won the race. The American arguments were that Theato had been a delivery boy for a bakery and therefore had an intimate knowledge of the Paris street network. It was believed that he must have taken an unknown shortcut. How else could he have finished more than an hour before the famous American?

However, the result of the race was not changed, and Michel Theato was the Olympic champion. In the 1990s, Olympic historians discovered that he was born in Luxembourg, but the gold medal is usually attributed to France.

From the longest running distance to one of the shortest. Twenty athletes lined up to start the 100 m race on the grass track in the Bois de Boulogne. The USA's Arthur Duffey was the clear favorite on the course. The week before the Olympics, he had defeated the other American Olympic participants at a competition in London. Duffey was in a class of his own, the fastest starter of all time, and he immediately showed great strength by winning the first of the six preliminary heats in a new Olympic record.

The American runners had never before competed on a grass track, but this did not prevent Frank Jarvis from matching the Belgian Emile de Re's existing world record of 10.8 seconds from 1893 in the third of the preliminary heats. In the final, Arthur Duffey was, as expected, the fastest from the start and apparently well on his way to victory when he suddenly fell in the middle of the race, suffering an injury to his left leg. Instead, the victory went to Jarvis by a good half meter ahead of his compatriot Walter Tewksbury.

Result 100 m M - Athletics Paris 1900 ⮞

In 1902, two years after the Olympic Games in Paris, Arthur Duffey ran 100 yards in 9.6 sec., setting a world record that stood for 24 years, but at the height of his career he missed out on Olympic gold.

Swimming in the Seine - upstream

The swimming competitions at the Paris Olympics were held in mid-August on a well-marked section of the Seine, about five kilometres long. There were seven disciplines on the programme, and participants from twelve countries participated in the competitions [6].

There were three freestyle events, over 200 m, 1000 m and 4000 m, respectively, the longest swimming distance at the Olympics ever until 2008, when a 10 km freestyle event was on the programme at the Beijing Olympics. The three events were won by the Australian Frederic Lane, who won the 200 m, and the Briton John Jarvis, who won both the 1000 m and 4000 m. In the 1000 m, a special thing happened when the Frenchman Jules Verbecke won his opening heat with a gap of almost seven minutes(!) to second place. In the final, however, Verbecke only came in eighth place.

Result 1000 m freestyle M - Swimming Paris 1900 ⮞

The 28-year-old John Jarvis was the favorite to win the long races in Paris. In previous years, from around 1897, he had been Britain's best swimmer over longer distances, and he had won the national championships several times over almost all distances over 440 yards.

In swimming, very fast times were generally achieved - mainly due to the fact that the swimming competitions were held in the Seine and that athletes swam with the current.

The swimming program in Paris also included three more unusual disciplines. The strangest for today was probably the 200 m obstacle course, where the participants had to climb over a pole, crawl over a row of sailboats and swim under another row of boats. The competition was won by Frederic Lane from Australia.

Another competition in Paris was underwater swimming, where points were awarded partly for how long you could stay underwater and partly for how far you could swim. This competition was won by the two Frenchmen Charles de Vendeville and Andre Six. Several sources mention, however, that the Dane Peder Lykkeberg was the best, but he had difficulty keeping his direction and swam almost in a circle. When the distance was measured as a straight line, Lykkeberg was only third after the two Frenchmen.

Result Underwater Swimming M - Swimming Paris 1900 ⮞

Finally, a team swim was held, which was not held as a relay race, but where the result was calculated according to the individual swimmers' individual placement and times in four heats. Here, the victory went to a German team ahead of three French teams.

In the first days of the Olympic swimming competition, a water polo tournament was held. The matches were played in a pool in the Seine, and seven teams from four countries participated. The tournament was won by the British team from the Osborne Swimming Club in Manchester [7].

The unknown Olympic champion and Olympic debut for football

The rowing competitions consisted of four disciplines, single sculls, coxed pairs, coxed fours and eights. The competitions were held on the Seine in August.

One of the mysterious incidents in Olympic history took place at the rowing competitions in Paris. The Dutch team in the coxed pairs, Francois Brandt and Roelof Klein, wanted to change their cox before the final, as it was believed that the original cox weighed too much. The Dutch therefore found a French boy, who was then on the team in the final, where the Dutch won. The French boy participated in the victory ceremony and was also photographed with the two Dutchmen, but after that he disappeared from history. For decades, Olympic historians have tried unsuccessfully to determine the boy's identity. He is probably the youngest Olympic champion in history.

Results Coxswain Pair M - Rowing Paris 1900 ⮞

Other oddities occurred in the coxswain fours. Here, through a series of strange arrangements, the race management managed to hold two official finals, which were won by a German and a French crew, respectively. Both finals have been recognized by posterity as legal Olympic championships.

As was the case with rowing, football also made its Olympic debut at the Games in Paris. Three teams took part in the tournament, a British team, a French team and a Belgian team.

To call it a “tournament” is probably an exaggeration, as only two matches were played in October. In the first, Great Britain beat France 4-0, and three days later France beat Belgium 6-2. On this basis, the order of precedence was determined, with Great Britain coming first, France second and Belgium third. The victorious British team came from Upton Park Football Club. The Belgian team was made up of players from several Belgian universities.

New sports - with uncertain Olympic identity

In addition to those mentioned above, a number of sports in Paris were included in the Olympics for the first time. These include Basque pelota, archery, cricket, croquet, golf, polo, equestrian, rugby, sailing and tug-of-war. Three of these sports, Basque pelota, cricket and croquet, were only included in the Olympics this one time.

On 2 October 1900, twelve men from the United States, Great Britain and France set off on the courses of the Compiegne Golf Club north of Paris to decide the Olympic golf championship in a match over 36 holes. The following day, ten women completed a similar match over nine holes. Both competitions were won by Americans, the men's tournament by Charles Sands and the women's by Margaret Abbott. Hardly any of the participating athletes perceived that they were participating in an Olympic event, but the two golf tournaments have been recognized as Olympic by the IOC and all leading Olympic historians.

Result Golf W - Paris 1900 ⮞

Result Golf M - Paris 1900 ⮞

Archery was one of the sports where one could consider whether it was even an Olympic sport. There were shooting in countless disciplines, and several thousand people participated. Almost exclusively Frenchmen took part, although several disciplines were open to foreign participation, and in the available sources a smaller number of disciplines are generally recognized as Olympic.

There can also be doubt in polo as to what was actually Olympic. During the long Olympic period there were several parallel polo tournaments in Paris, but the one that is generally recognized as Olympic took place in the Bois de Boulogne at the end of May. Four teams with athletes from Great Britain, France, the United States and Mexico participated. Polo was subsequently included in the Olympics several times until 1936, after which the sport was dropped from the Olympic program.

Sailing was planned for the program at the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, but this had to be abandoned due to the bad weather conditions in the Bay of Piraeus. In Paris, sailing was based in Le Havre. However, a number of Olympic historians consider the sailing events in 1900 to be non-Olympic, as they were held under conditions that are not normally compatible with the Olympics, such as professionalism, prize money and handicaps. Other historians, however, consider about ten disciplines to be Olympic. Moreover, the sailing results, participants, etc. are only sparsely described in the sources.

Tug of War was an Olympic sport in the period 1900-1920, after which the sport disappeared from the Olympic program. In Paris, the competition was won by a combined Danish/Swedish team. Originally, only two teams were entered, France and the USA. However, the USA withdrew when the competition clashed with other tasks for the athletes, after which Denmark and Sweden put together a “Nordic team” consisting of three athletes from each country. This assembled team was strong enough to easily defeat France over two rounds [8].

Most medals for the host nation

As previously mentioned, there is disagreement among Olympic historians about which competitions in Paris were Olympic and which were not. By comparing different sources, one can arrive at a reasonable estimate that 85 Olympic disciplines were competed in in Paris within 17 sports. Compared to the first Games in 1896, there were ten new sports on the program. On the other hand, wrestling and weightlifting were removed from the Olympic program.

More than 300 athletes and 27 nations achieved placements among the top three, corresponding to the gold, silver and bronze medals of later times. The host nation France achieved 102 placements among the top three, including 26 first places. The United States won 19 first places and Great Britain 15 first places.

American track and field star Alvin Kraenzlein was the most successful athlete of the Games with four first places. This was followed by Swiss shooter Konrad Stäheli and American track and field athlete Raymond Ewry with three first places.

There was never a formal opening ceremony for the Paris Games, and the Games ended in obscurity on 28 October without any official commemoration.