THE OLYMPICS

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In 1612 Robert Dover staged an Olympicks in the Cotswolds. The event included one sport the essence of which seems to have been to try to break your opponent's shins with a heavy wooden stick before he broke yours with his.

In 1850 William Penny Brookes staged a form of olympic games for the villagers of Wenlock. This proved to be a link in the chain of events that led to the staging of the first modern Olympic Games at Athens in 1896.

At Rugby the innovative headmaster Thomas Arnold (1795-1842) had had little time for sport. However, Thomas Hughes (1822-1896), in his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), which was set in the school had portrayed it as being a means of moulding character. Baron Courbertin read the book and took up the writer's idea. He wanted to revive French morale in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War. He believed that if sports were standardised then nations could compete against one another and there would not be wars. He believed the Greek states had played sport rather than fighting wars.

Location: The Working Men's College, 44 Crowndale Road, NW1 1TR. Hughes was involved with the College for almost 30 years, acting as its Principal from 1872 to 1883. He was a noted boxing instructor. (orange, red)

Website: www.olympics.com (The International Olympic Committee) www.wmcollege.ac.uk

The 1908 London Olympics

Rome was due to host the 1908 Olympics. However, before it could do so, Mount Vesuvius erupted. The city felt compelled to withdraw its hospitality. A committee of five Britons stepped in.

In Shepherd's Bush a 140-acre plot of land was being developed by the impresario Imre Kiralfy as The White City exhibition site. The Hungarian migr recognised how the sporting event could raise his venue's profile. Therefore, he made it available to the organising group. He built the White City stadium in return for being granted 75% of the Games receipts.

The sports included motor boat racing and tug-of-war. It was the first Olympics at which athletes were required to appear for a country rather than as individuals. This was against Baron de Coubertin s original wish. 21 countries sent teams. The Austro-Hungary Empire sent three separate teams: Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia.¹ Australasia was composed of both Australia and New Zealand. The Games took place from April to October. There was a fortnight in which many of the principal events were held. The two weeks proved to be very heated because of Anglo-American rivalry. In part, its ardency was underscored by the recent establishment of an Anglo-French entente cordiale (1904). Team America, which included a number of Irishmen, was very professional in its approach.² It was the first Olympics in which women competed.

Running lanes had not yet been introduced for the 400m. race. The event was staged under British rules. These barred athletes from blocking their fellow competitors. However, the practice was regarded as being acceptable in the United States. In one of the qualifying heats Wyndham Halswelle, a Briton, set a new Olympic record. The other three runners in the final were Americans. During it he was brazenly blocked by one of them. The presiding officials disqualified the cheat and ordered that the race should be re-run in lanes. In an expression of misplaced solidarity, the other two American athletes declined to accept the decision. Therefore, they did not turn up at the scheduled time. The only person to do so was Halswelle. Despite there being no one for him to vie against, it was ruled that the race had to be run. He complied with the authorities wishes and ran alone. In what was a unique occasion in Olympic history, he was awarded the gold medal for the event.

The 1908 marathon was extended by 385 yards so that the race could both start in front on Windsor Castle and end in front of the royal box in White City Stadium. The first runner to enter the arena was Dorando Pietri, an Italian. He was clearly in a state of extreme exhaustion. He started to run the wrong way around the track. A number of officials - who may well have included Arthur Conan Doyle in their number - intervened and helped direct him past the finishing line. He collapsed five times within the stadium before ultimately making his way over the finishing line. An American runner finished second. Team America protested at the way in which Pietri had been assisted. The Italian was disqualified. In compensation for his not receiving the medal, Queen Alexandra gave him a silver cup.

The United Kingdom had the single largest haul of medals. This outcome was aided by the fact that several of the events had only Britons compete in them, while others had more than one British team contest them. Sailing and tennis were events that had particularly large numbers of Britons enter them.

Upon their return to the United States, the American athletes paraded a British lion on a chain.

The 1908 Olympics were far better organised than any of the previous ones had been. The Americans were upset at how it had gone. Therefore, they pressed for reforms. These two factors helped to give the Games the organisational rigour that enabled it to re-emerge following the carnage of the First World War.³

Location: White City Place, Wood Lane, W12 7TP

¹. With regard to securing medals Hungary was to do better than Bohemia did. The latter was to outperform Austria.

². The Games organisers failed to procure neither a Swedish flag nor an American one. By contrast the Japanese flag was flown. No Japanese athletes competed in the competition.

³. At the 1912 Stockholm Olympics America won the most gold medals (25). Sweden secured one less but received the most overall medals (65). Britain came third. The demonstration sports that the hosts included were those old Nordic favourites kasta varpa and st ngst rtning.

Not The Winning

Ethelbert Talbot the Episcopalian Bishop of Central Pennsylvania attended the 1908 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion. On 19 July he preached a sermon in St Paul's Cathedral as part of a service that was being held for the Olympic officials and athletes. The views that he expressed prompted Pierre de Courbertin of the International Olympic Committee to coin the epithet that The important thing in the Olympic Games is not the winning but the taking part. ¹

Location: St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's Churchyard, EC4M 8AD (purple, white)

¹. During the 1912 Stockholm Olympics de Courbertin was awarded its gold medal for poetry for his Ode To Sport. He had submitted the work pseudonymously.

The 1948 London Olympics

The British government was disinclined to finance the 1948 Games. They became known as the Austerity Olympics. The contemporary shortage of building materials meant that only two new structures were created for them. These were a small stand at the Herne Hill Velodrome and Olympic Way, a road that leads towards Wembley Stadium, a dog racing track that served as the principal venue. The neighbouring ice rink was adapted to serve as a swimming pool.

Competitors were asked to bring their own towels. Many of the athletes who participated in the event did so in homemade kit. Male athletes were lodged on military bases, while female ones were accommodated in hotels and hostels. Halal kitchens were established to meet the dietary requirements of Muslim participants.

The British were severe about the issue of professionalism with regard to their own athletes. Denis Watts, the A.A.A. triple jump champion, was barred from participating in the Games because prior to them he had applied for a job as a physical education teacher in a school.

The innovations that the Nazis had introduced for the 1936 Berlin Olympics had included a torch relay from Olympia in Greece to the Olympiastadion, the German Games principal venue. Despite the circumstances in which the practice had been created, the organisers of the London ones chose to re-employ it. This decision enabled it to evolve into being one the core aspects of the competition's opening.

At the Herne Hill Velodrome the cycling races overran. The track did not have any floodlights. The competition was able to continue because some of spectators had driven to the event. They used their car lights to illuminate the circuit.

There were no starting blocks. The runners used trowels to dig depressions into the track where they placed their feet to start the race. It was the first Olympics in which a photo finish was used - for the men's 100m..

The medals table ended with America coming first with 38 golds, Sweden second with sixteen, and Britain twelfth with three.¹ The star of the Games was the Dutch sprinter Fanny Blankers-Koen. She won gold medals in the 100m., the 200m., the 80m. hurdles, and the 4 x 100m.. She was pregnant at the time. Alice Coachman (1923-2014) became the first Black American woman to win a gold medal. She was awarded it for the high jump. She jumped 1.68m.. The Briton Jim Halliday secured a bronze in the weightlifting. He had survived being interred in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Far East. Upon being released three years earlier, he had weighed just 4 stone.

The Games cost 732,000 to stage and made a profit of 29,420, upon which 9000 tax was paid.

The Olympics were complemented by the Stoke Mandeville Games that were held in Aylesbury. This event was to evolve into being the Paralympics.

Location: Olympic Way, HA9 0FR

White City Place, Wood Lane, W12 7TP

¹. Two for rowing and one for sailing. (In the Olympics, Britain has tended to fare best at what can be termed sports for rich people .)

The 2012 London Olympics

London was awarded the opportunity to host the 2012 Olympics in large part because of organisers commitment to creating a legacy that would benefit the city after the Games had been staged.

Of the permanent buildings that were constructed for the Games the Aquatic Centre was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the Velodrome by Hopkins Architects Partnerships, and the Olympic Stadium by the Populous architectural practice.

Location: London Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, E20 2ST. The Olympic Stadium.

See Also: ARCHITECTURE

Website: http://london2012.org (The Olympic Delivery Authority), www.teamgb.com (The British Olympic Association)

https://zaha-hadid.com The Hadid practice designed the Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton and the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in Kensington Gardens.

www.hopkins.co.uk The Hopkins practice's other buildings in London include: the Evelina Children s Hospital on the St Thomas's site, Westminster Underground Station, the Ticket Office at Buckingham Palace, the Lawn Tennis Association's National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, and the masterplan for the Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as a number of developments within the institution.

http://populous.com The structures that Populous has designed in London include: Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, the O2 Arena within the Millennium Dome, and the sliding roof that can cover the All England Tennis & Croquet Club's Centre Court at Wimbledon.

The Orbit

The ArcelorMittal Orbit viewing structure was devised by the sculptor Anish Kapoor and the designer and engineer Cecil Balmond. Both men had been born in South Asia. They had chosen to live and work in London because of the city s capacity for flux. They sought to reflect this adaptability in the structure's flowing form. They derived this by reworking of the five Olympic rings.

The architect who oversaw the physical realisation of The Orbit was Kathryn Findlay (1953-2014). Her own avant-garde design work has been described as Organic Modernist, DigiThatch, and Future-Rustic. She had studied at the Architectural Association in the 1970s. There, her tutors had included Peter Cook of the Archigram group of architectural thinkers.

See Also: VISITOR ATTRACTIONS

Website: https://arcelormittalorbit.com

The Paralympic Games

The U.K. television rights for the Paralympic Games were held by Channel 4. Following the Olympics but before the start of the Paralympics, the station ran a billboard poster campaign that featured British Paralympians. The images bore the strap line Thanks For The Warm-up .

Website: www.paralympic.org www.paralympic.org/london-2012

David Backhouse 2024