History of the Early Olympics – Serie

The 1900 Olympic Games have been termed "The Farcical Games." The events were poorly organized and years later many of the competitors had no idea that they had actually competed in the Olympics. They only knew that they had competed in an international sporting event in Paris in 1900. No official records of the 1900 Olympics exist.Based primarily on 1900 sources, the sites, dates, events, competitors, and nations as well as the event results are compiled herein for all of the 1900 Olympic events, including archery, track and field, cricket, equestrian, fencing, soccer, pelota basque, water polo, and rowing, among other sports.

During the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, much of the world watched and celebrated as athletes broke world records and took home medals, fulfilling their Olympic dreams. The athletes' scores were available instantaneously and are now easily accessible, but what about the performance records of the first modern Olympic athletes? The Modern Olympic Games began in 1896 in Athens, Greece, but an official record of these Olympic games does not exist.This work is the first in a series of comprehensive reference works giving the results of the Olympic Games, beginning in 1896. Based primarily on 1896 sources, the sites, dates, events, competitors, and nations as well as the event results are compiled herein for track and field, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, swimming, tennis (lawn), weightlifting, wrestling and other sports and events. Although mainly a statistical analysis, this work does include a short synopsis of the Sorbonne Congress and reprints of famous articles about the Olympics.

The 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis were both unusual and controversial. One of the major problems for Olympic scholars has been to determine which of the events at these Games were truly of Olympic caliber. The Games were included as part of the World's Fair, and every athletic contest that took place under the Fair's auspices was deemed "Olympic." These activities included croquet and water polo, high school and college championships in football and basketball, as well as the "Anthropology Days" events in which members of "primitive" "tribes" competed against one another.The author demonstrates, after great deliberation, that 16 events of the 21 overall were truly Olympic sports and gives descriptions, scores, and analyses for each (as well as for the five non-Olympic events). Appendices include literature relating to these games, lists of noncompeting foreign entrants, and a guide to all competitors.

One of the early concepts of the Olympic Games was to include "intercalated" Games every four years between the normal cycle, and to hold these Games in Athens, the ancestral home of the Olympics. In 1906 the first, and only one, of these games was held. Occurring only two years after the St. Louis Games of 1904 and two years before the London Games of 1908, the Athens Games were considered by many not to be "official"; social and political forces prevented continuation of the intercalation cycle in 1910 and later. Yet these Games were surprisingly successful and helped guarantee the survival of the modern Olympics. This book, fourth in the series on the early Olympics, presents all the data on 29 nation and city-state participants in more than a dozen events in the Athens Games. Scores and descriptions are provided, and many historical errors and omissions in other sources are corrected. Appendices include the published program for the Games, the actual schedule followed during the Games, and country-by country listings of all participating athletes.

The 1908 Olympic Games were controversial. There was almost constant bickering among the American team and the British officials. Because of the controversies, the 1908 Olympics have been termed "The Battle of Shepherd's Bush," referring to the site of the Olympic Stadium. Reports of the 1908 Olympics have been rare and do not for instance contain full results for archery, track and field athletics, football (soccer), gymnastics, motorboating and shooting. A great deal of new information has been discovered by the authors, and this work gives complete results for all events.The information presented is based primarily on 1908 sources. For the first time, definitive word on the sites, dates, events, competitors, and nations as well as the event results are available for all of the 1908 Olympic events, including boxing, cycling, diving, fencing, field hockey, lacrosse, polo, raquets, swimming, lawn tennis, tug-of-war, weightlifting, wrestling and yachting, among other sports. A series of appendices include rarely seen information about the many controversies surrounding the Games.

The 1912 Olympic Games held in Stockholm, Sweden, were the most "modern" Olympic Games yet celebrated and the most successful of the Modern Era to that date. Much of the success is credited to the influence of Viktor Balck, who is remembered as "The Father of Swedish Sports." The 1912 Olympics also featured new innovations and events. A semiautomatic electrical timing device and a photo-finish camera were used, and the decathlon and modern pentathalon were new events. This work, the sixth in a series on the early Olympics, provides unusually extensive information on the sites, dates, competitors, and nations of the Stockholm games. Results for each event, including cycling, diving, fencing, rowing and sculling, shooting, tennis, water polo, and yachting, among others, are provided.