1908 London Summer Olympics IV Summer Games Presentation By: Kristjan Lukk Form: 10 A Co-Educational Grammar School of Saaremaa

Background  1908 London Summer Olympics opening ceremony was held on April 27th and closing ceremony six months later – on November 31  The games were originally scheduled to be held in Rome, Italy. Due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on April 7, 1916 that nearly destroyed Naples, all funds were diverted to rebuilding the city and so had the IOC to choose a new venue.  Finally, London was selected as the Olympic Games host city. The other competitioners were Berlin, Germany and Milan, Italy.  1908 Summer Olympics was originally considered as fifth modern Olympics, but the IOC decided that Athens Games of 1906 were out of the list and so became London Olympics the fourth modern Olympics

Preparation  United Kingdom had only tho years to prepare themselves for the games, but still they managed to host the Olympics superbly.  The main stadium of the Olympics was the White City stadium, which could host up to people. The stadium was considered as a technological marvel.  White City stadium hosted many other top sporting events on the upcoming years and was finally demolished in 1985  The stadium track was three laps to the mile, not the current standard of 400 metres, with a pool for swimming and diving and platforms for wrestling and gymnastics in the middle.  Budget of the organizing committee was a cost of £15,000. Total gate receipts was £21,377 which ment a nice profit.

Sports  22 sports with 24 sporting disciplines were held.  The sporting disciplines were following: archery, athletics, boxing, cycling, diving, fencing, figure skating, football, gymnastics, hockey, jeu de paume (a tennis game), lacrosse, polo, rackets, rowing, rugby, sailing, shooting, swimming, tennis, tug of war, water motorsports, water polo, wrestling  Swimming, diving and water polo was considered as same sport – aquatics.

Participants  22 countries took park:  Argentina  Australasia (Australia/New Zealand)  Austria  Belgium  Bohemia (part of Austria-Hungary)  Canada  Denmark  Finland  France  Germany  Greece  Great Britain  Hungary  Italy  Netherlands  Norway  Russia  South Arfrica  Sweden  Switzerland  Turkey  USA

Controversies  Finnish people refused to march under the Russian Empire flag on the open ceremony  Swedish people didn’t take part of the opening at all because their flag wasn’t displayed above the stadium;  USA flag wasn’t also displayed above the stadium and so the flag bearer refused to dip the flag to the royal box  Standard rules for sports were established after 1908 Olympics due to the misunderstandings concerning 400 metre run and marathon. In both of them the original winner was disqualified.

Marathon controversy  The most famous incident at 1908 Olympics happened at marathon race.  Fact is that marathon distance 42,195 kilometres was first established in 1908 London Olympics.  First man to reach back to stadium after running 40 kilometres was Italian Dorando Pietri. First he ran to the wrong direction and then fell five times. Each time he was helped back to his feet and finally he won the race.  US runners lodged a complaint against Pietri and they succeeded. American Johnny Hayes could later celebrate his victory.  As a compensation for the missing medal, Queen Alexandra gave him a gilded silver cup, an award proposed by the writer Arthur Conan Doyle.

Fun facts  The olympic moto “the most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part” was first sayd out in London  Oscar Swahn from Sweden who won gold medal for running deer shooting was the oldest gold-medalist ever. He set a new record at Antwerpen Olympics 1920 when he was more than 72 years old.  American John Taylor was a member of the winning medley relay team, making him the first African-American athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. Tragically, he died on the same year.  1908 London Games were the first to include Winter events, as had originally been proposed for the Games. There were four figure skating events, although held months after other events.

Medal Count  A total of 19 countries won medals from 1908 Summer Olympics.  Great Britain won 146 medals: 56 were golden, 51 silver and 39 bronze.  USA won 47 medals: 23 golden, 12 silver and 12 bronze.  Sweden won 25 medals: 8 golden, 6 silver and 11 bronze.  France won 19, Germany 13, Hungary 9, Canada 16, Norway 8, Italy 4, Belgium 8, Australasia 5, Russia 3, Finland 5, South Africa 2, Greece 3, Denmark 5, Bohemia 2, Netherlands 2 and Austria 1 medal.

References  Text and pictures from Wikipedia (URL=en.wikipedia.org)  Some pictures from Google (URL=google.com