Olympics 2012, in Londontown

Here's a fun read - I was just looking at the Wikipedia entries for some of the first Olympics and found this to be hilarious. It's the description of the marathon at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis.

The first guy to finish drove a car for most of the way and was named winner before being found out. The real winner was given rat poison by his coaches to stay energized and had to be carried across the finish line before nearly dying. The 4th place finisher was just some random dude who stopped by and decided to run, and along the course decided to stop and eat some apples from an orchard, but they were rotten so he got sick and took a nap... and still finished 4th. The guy who finished 12th was actually there primarily to be a sideshow performer, but entered the race and apparently would have finished much higher were it not for being chased a mile off course by some angry dogs.

I mean, are you kidding me?! That's freakin' awesome. I think a good book could be written about that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1904_Summer_Olympics

 

Someone posted an article earlier in the thread about the 1904 marathon. Very interesting read.

 

I liked the description of the site of the 1904 Olympics being "...at what is now known as Francis Field on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis." Francis Field, the only venue mentioned.

 

That was me.
Digging around some more, it seems the water polo tournament was played in a filthy pond. It didn't end well.

http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1904/WAP/mens-water-polo.html

 

Also found this. A pretty large picture gallery from the 1904 Games:

http://collections.mohistory.org/search/custom_search?text=1904%20olympics

http://pinterest.com/mohistorymuseum/1904-olympics-st-louis/

(Two versions of the same gallery; the Pinterest version is a little easier to navigate and read the cutlines)

 

Keshorn Walcott won the second-ever Gold medal for Trinidad and Tobago when he won the men's javelin competition in London. Trinidad and Tobago was so excited about this that they rewarded him with a lighthouse.

They didn't name a lighthosue after him. They GAVE him a lighthouse.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/athletics/9475686/London-2012-Olympics-Trinidad-and-Tobagos-Keshorn-Walcott-earns-lighthouse-with-javelin-gold-medal.html

 

According to the indispensible Complete Book of the Summer Olympics (Wallechinsky/Loucky), the fourth-place finisher, Felix Carvajal of Cuba, took a boat from Havana to new Orleans, lost the rest of his savings in a crap game, hitchhiked to St. Louis and arrived at the starting line in street clothes. The start was delayed while his pants were cut at the knee.

It also included the first three Africans in the Olympics, two blacks and one white, who were in town to act out battles from the Boer War.

It was scheduled for the middle at the afternoon on July 30 in St. Louis (so it was 90 degrees). The only water available was from a well 12 miles from the stadium. One of the Africans was chased off the course by dogs and through a cornfield. Carvajal, meanwhile, stopped to chat with folks along the way, discuss the race in progress and work on his English. He stole some peaches and apples along the way, the latter of the two giving him stomach cramps.

Fred Lorz had already been pictured with Alice Roosevelt (daughter of Teddy) and was about to be given the gold medal when they found he'd Rosie Ruized it in. He received a 'lifetime ban," but was back in time to legitimately won the 1905 Boston Marathon.

The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, took an oral dose of strychnine sulfate mixed with raw egg white...twice. He was also bathed with water kept warm by being kept next to the boiler of the steam-powered automobile following him.

Two of the officials patrolling the course (which had no fewer than seven hills) were injured when their new car swerved to avoid hitting a runner and careened down an embankment.

Oh, and the winning time was 3:28, which would have put him fourth at Boston this year...in the 65-69-year-old men's division.

 

That reads like a Monty Python script.

 

Yep.

 

The lighthouse: the gift that every person needs.

 

I worked for the organizing committee in Atlanta in 1996.

The pluses: record crowds, good facilities relatively close to one another, great competition

Negatives: Bombing in Centennial Park, transportation fiasco, glitches in computer system that was supposed to deliver results (also with our own web system)

I agree Atlanta takes a bad rap in Europe because of the general anti-American sentiment. But every Olympics reflects the culture of the host city and Atlanta, for better or worse, is the American South. Beijing had it's culture; London was much different; I'm sure Rio will be different than either.