Tag Pierre de Coubertin

For the Glory of Sport

Michael 2 Comments

The first of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games will be held today. And the opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games will be held tomorrow. Yes, I noticed that also.

Getting things twisted around like that is nothing new for the First Olympic Winter Games. You can go back to the first Winter Olympics in 1924 to confirm that.

OL1924In 1924 athletes from sixteen nations gathered in Chamonix France from January 25 to February 5 to compete in 16 events. On January 26, 1924 (the day after the opening ceremonies), Charles Jewtraw, an American from Lake Placid New York, finished the 500 meter speed skating event in 44.0 seconds to win the first gold medal of the games.

The other events held at Chamonix including Four Man Men’s Bobsleigh, 18km and 50km Men’s Cross Country Skiing, Men’s Curling, Men’s and Women’s Individual and Mixed Pair’s Figure Skating, Men’s Ice Hockey, Men’s Military Patrol (a sort of 4 man team biathlon), Men’s Individual Nordic Combined, Men’s Individual Ski Jumping, and Men’s 1000m, 1500m, 5000m, and Combined Speed Skating. Two hundred, fifty eight athletes participated in these sports; forty-nine medals were awarded.

The last medal awarded went to another American athlete. Anders Haugen was awarded the bronze medal in Men’s Individual Ski Jumping. He was awarded the medal on September 12, 1974. He was originally scored in fourth place but was advanced to third when fifty years later an error was noted in the original results. It’s interesting to note Mr. Haugen is the only American to have ever won an Olympic medal in a ski jumping event.

The 1924 games were opened on January 25 by French National Olympic and Sports Committee member Gaston Vidal. The opening was accompanied by a parade of athletes, each country led by its flag bearer who took the official oath on behalf of his team.

We swear. We will take part in the Olympic Games in a spirit of chivalry, for the honour of our country and for the glory of sport.

French skier and member of France’s Men’s Military Patrol team Camille Mandrillon delivered the oath to the public on behalf of all athletes assembled there. The games began the following day and medals were awarded at the closing ceremony on February 5. In his remarks at the closing, International Olympic Committee president Pierre de Coubertin stated:

Winter sports have about them a certain purity, and that is why I was inclined to support and nurture them in this Olympic environment.

So where were things twisted around? The Chamonix games of 1924 was in 1924 officially “a week of international winter sport.” In May 1925 at their annual congress,the IOC retroactively designated the 1924 games as the “First Olympic Winter Games.”

What’s that saying? Right. Better late than never.

Olympic Flag

Photo: International Olympic Committee, Olympics.org

 

The Ultimate Participation Award

Michael Leave a comment

Anybody who has ever been at a youth sporting event medal ceremony knows they can be longer than the event. With that in mind, it’s a good thing they don’t have participation medals at the Olympics. Sort of.

There were over 11,000 athletes at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. As it was, there were over 900 medals awarded in 306 events. Since there were several multiple medal winners that means that quite fewer than 1% of the athletes who participated in the games went home with an award.

All those participants in all those events and the only ones who stood on a podium and had gold, silver, or bronze draped over them were those who finished first, second, or third in their particular endeavor. And that’s the way it is. Only the top three contestants are awarded medals. Plus another twenty-one.

The Pierre de Coubertin Medal is a special award given to those who exemplify the true spirit of sportsmanship in the Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee and introduced the modern games to the world. He felt the games were an opportunity to promote peace, unite people around the world, and celebrate the struggle of competition.

How special is this special award. Saturday it was awarded for only the eighteenth time. Maybe you saw when long distance runners Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand and American Abbey D’Agostino got tripped up during the women’s 5,000 meter preliminary event. Hamblin went down and D’Agostino stopped and urged her to get up to finish the race. They began running again and that’s when D’Agostino went down and it was Hamblin’s turn to stay with her.

The two women became the 20th and 21st people to have received the award which has been presented eighteen times since its introduction in 1964.

Even though neither was expected to medal in the event, both left Brazil with the ultimate participation award. Hamblin said of the incident, “You can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose what you do about it.”  Words more precious than gold.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?