The 1904 St. Louis Olympics organizers repeated the mistakes of 1900.
The Games originally were scheduled for Chicago, but were switched to St. Louis
when Olympic organizing committee officials had the bright idea of combining the
Olympics with the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, a large fair celebrating the
100th anniversary of the U.S. acquisition of the Louisiana Territory. As a
result, the Games suffered. The atmosphere was one of American inter-collegiate championships. To
illustrate the point, of the 94 events 52 were functionally closed events,
contested by athletes only from the USA.
However, the 1904 Olympics produced innovations, they were the first to award
gold, silver and bronze medals.
Fiasco in the St Louis 2004 Olympic Swimming Pool
Hungary's Zoltan Halmay was a Hungarian swimmer who won the 100 yards and
50 yard freestyle in the 1904 St Louis Olympics. Incidentally, this
was the only Olympic Games which used a pool and race distances in yards not
meters.
Originally, Halmay beat American J. Scott Leary by a foot in the 50 yard
event. However, the American judge ruled that Leary had won.
This ruling resulted in a brawl and the judges ordered a rematch.
Halmay won again.
More Imperial Yards - No Metric Distances
For the only time in the Olympics, the 220 yards (200M) was run on a straight
course, no bends. Another unusual feature was the winner, Archie Hahn, got
a handy 1 yd start on each of his three opponents. This was not because
they were professionals but because they false-started and in 1904 the penalty
for jumping the gun was a 1 yd penalty. Could this idea make a come-back?
Boxing and freestyle wrestling made their debuts. Marathon runners Len Tau and
Jan Mashiani, Tswana tribesmen who were in St. Louis as part of the Boer War
exhibit at the World's
Fair, became the first Africans to compete in the
Olympics.
One of the most remarkable athletes was the American gymnast George Eyser, who won six medals even though his left leg was made of wood. Chicago
runner James Lightbody won the steeplechase and the 800m and then set a world
record in the 1,500m.
St Louis Olympic Trivia Chicago was supposed to
host the 1904 Olympics, but St. Louis stole it away. The Games were a
fiasco.
In the marathon at the St Louis 1904 Olympic Games, Lorz hitched a lift
in his manager's car for about 10 miles. Unsurprisingly for those days
the care broke down so a refreshed Lorz carried on jogging. Eventually
he reached the stadium, still well in front of the other competitors and was
hailed as the winner.
Though he initially went along with it, Lorz soon admitted the deception.
Thomas Hicks went on to become the real winner. Actually, Lorz was not
a bad runner because he won the Boston Marathon in 1905 with a time of
2:38:25.
Footnote Please send us your interesting facts
and trivia for the St Louis 1904 Olympic games.
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