London Re-Calling: A look back at 1908

The marathon was the talk of London back in 1908.

Extended 385 yards so that it could begin in front of Princess Mary at Windsor Castle and still finish inside White City Stadium, the extra 385 yards proved to be too much for the local fans at the 1908 Olympic Games.

After approximately 26 miles of running — the original marathon distance — an Italian named Dorando Pietri entered the stadium with a sizeable lead. The reported crowd of 80,000 fans roared in approval. And had the race ended at 26 miles, Pietri would likely have been the winner. But alas, those 385 extra yards.

Pietri’s body had shut down by the time he stepped into the stadium. Only half of a lap around the third-of-a-mile track remained. That distance proved too far. He fell not once but five times. It was only with considerable assistance from British officials that he finally crossed the finish line.

Yet Pietri was a hero. And his hero status only increased after he was disqualified. American Johnny Hayes, looking fresh, cruised to the finish just moments after Pietri. Following an American protest and a long discussion among British officials, he was awarded the gold medal.

The lasting legacy of that race was the distance, as that length (26 miles, 385 yards) eventually became the standard marathon beginning at the Paris 1924 Olympic Games. At the time, however, the marathon finish was just one example of the icy relations between U.S. and British Olympic officials that threatened to overshadow the competitions.

As London prepares to host its third Olympic Games in 2012, the relations between the two sides are decidedly more pleasant. But in 1908, three high-profile American protests against British officials — in the marathon, the tug-of-war and the 400-meter run — followed a testy Opening Ceremony when, after the American flag was missing from White City Stadium, U.S. flag bearer and shot put champ Ralph Rose declined to follow the protocol of dipping the flag in front of King Edward VII (a tradition that continues to this day).

Controversies aside, however, and the 1908 Games went down as a tremendous success, and perhaps the savior of the modern Olympic Games.

At the very least, London was the savior of the fourth Olympiad.

1908: Martin Sheridan throws the discus on his way to winning the event at the 1908 London Olympics. Photo courtesy of Olympic.org/Getty Images.

Shortly after the International Olympic Committee selected Rome as the host city for the 1908 Games, the Italian government grew anxious over financing it. When Mount Vesuvius erupted near Naples in 1906, Italy had its out.

London stepped in on short notice — just like it would do 40 years later when it hosted the 1948 Games on short-notice following World War II.

In 1908, however, any uncertainty was dangerous for the fledgling Olympic Movement. The modern Games had only begun in 1896, but the 1900 and 1904 editions were largely considered flops.

Both the 1900 Games in Paris and the 1904 Games in St. Louis were held in conjunction to World’s Fairs, and neither truly captured the Olympic ideal. Paris was a mess, with some athletes not even realizing they were competing in an Olympic Games. St. Louis was better, but the American Midwest wasn’t an easy destination in 1904, resulting in a competition largely among Americans.

A similar story in 1908 could have forever hindered — or ended — the Olympic Movement. Instead, the English capital put the Games back on track with a well-organized and distinctive competition, and for good measure, Rome eventually got its chance when it hosted the noteworthy 1960 Olympic Games (and it is one of six cities bidding to host the 2020 Games).

After 651 athletes from 15 countries competed in St. Louis — where the 526 Americans won 239 of the 280 total medals — the 1908 London Games attracted 2,008 athletes from 22 different countries. And, for the first time, countries were limited in the number of athletes they could bring for each sport.

The 1908 Games still looked quite different from more recent Olympic Games for all intents and purposes, but London did leave two significant legacies on future Games: a stadium designed purposely for the Olympic Games and an Opening Ceremony.

Twelve of the Games’ 24 sports were held at White City Stadium, the grand venue with 63,000 seats and room for 30,000 more to stand in the Shepherd’s Bush area of West London. It featured not only a running track but also a cycling track and a swimming pool — the first time the Olympic swimming competition was held in a pool (in 1896, 1900 and 1904, swimming events were held in open water.) Besides track and field, cycling and the water sports, archery, field hockey, gymnastics, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, tug-of-war, and wrestling were also held in White City Stadium. Fencing was held just outside the stadium.

A main Olympic stadium is now an important venue for any Olympic Games, but the physical legacy of the first one is now gone; White City Stadium was demolished in 1984 and replaced by the BBC television headquarters (although the nearest Underground stop still bears the stadium’s name).

White City Stadium was also the site of the first Opening Ceremony, although it was a much more modest affair that the ones we know today. The stadium was filled with the Royal Family and other members of high society from Great Britain and Europe, but the ceremony itself was largely just a procession of delegations marching behind a flag bearer, in alphabetical order, ending with the host nation.

The ceremony, however, was hardly an opening. Most of the 1908 Olympic action took place between the Opening Ceremony on July 13 and July 25 (there was no Closing Ceremony). However, four competitions were held before then, beginning with the rackets tournament on April 27. A second competition of sorts was also held in October, which included the four field events (soccer, rugby, hockey and lacrosse), as well as boxing and the Olympic debut of figure skating.

The program in 2012 will be on a much tighter schedule, from July 27 to Aug. 12, and the main Olympic Park will be in East London rather than West London. But not all things are different. In 1908, the tennis competition was held at the All-England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, better known as Wimbledon, and that will be the same venue for tennis in 2012.

Another piece of history that Great Britain hopes repeat in 2012 is hauling in the most medals. In each of the first three Olympic competitions, the host country won the medal count, and Great Britain extended that streak to four consecutive Games in 1908. In fact, Great Britain’s 145 total medals were more than three times as many as the runner-up, the United States, which garnered 47.

The United States did feature some of the Games’ biggest stars though. New Jersey-born Mel Sheppard was one of two athletes to win three gold medals, which he did in the 800-meter run, the 1,500-meter run and as a member of the medley relay team.

Martin Sheridan, an Ireland-born New Yorker known as one of the top all-around athletes of his time, competed in five field events and won two gold medals and a bronze. Today he is most well known for his reported remark after the incident at the Opening Ceremony: “This flag dips to no earthly king.”

One of the tragic stories of the Games was that of another U.S. star, John Taylor. Favored to win the 400-meter run, Taylor and his teammates decided to boycott the event when British officials controversially ruled that it had to be re-run. The officials said the U.S. athletes had illegally fouled a British runner. Later that day, Taylor still became the first black athlete to win an Olympic gold medal when he did so as part of the medley relay team. However, Taylor, who had recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, died just five months later of typhoid. He was 26.

If one good thing came out of the 400-meters controversy it was that international bodies rather than local officials were brought in to officiate. The IAAF was formed in 1912 and still governs international track and field today.

Women were first allowed to compete at the 1900 Games, but in 1908 they made up only 37 of the 2,008 total competitors — and only competed in archery, figure skating and tennis.

A women’s pioneer named Madge Syers was the star of figure skating. The British skater won the ladies’ competition and finished third in pairs, putting her in a class of her own as the only figure skater to win two Olympic medals in one Games.

But while athletes such as Syers, Taylor, Sheridan and Sheppard were among the stars of the 1908 Games, they hardly compare to the likely stars of the 2012 Games. Prior to a series of IOC rule changes during the 1970s and 1980s, Olympic athletes had to be amateurs. The lack of endorsement deals and payment for competition largely limited Olympians to those who could afford to train. And, of course, without television or Internet the exposure was greatly limited.

That didn’t mean exposure was non-existent. Pietri, the aforementioned Italian marathoner, capitalized on his popularity by taking part in professional races after the 1908 Games. However, he most certainly was not invited to compete on Dancing with the Stars in the years that followed.

The quality of Olympic equipment, venues and technology has also greatly improved since 1908, but organizers in London didn’t need fancy electronic timing systems to document some world records. Those records, however, are another story.

One of the first great American swimmers, Charles Daniels set the world record in the 100-meter freestyle at 1:05.6. France’s Alain Bernard won the event 100 years later at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games with a time of 47.21. Brazil’s Cesar Cielo Filho holds the world record at 46.91. 

As the days tick away in the countdown to the 2012 Olympic Games, the details of that venerable 1908 competition are largely forgotten. But while Daniels’ record has faded into time, the legacy of London’s first Games will quietly live on in 2012.

And perhaps no legacy still rings as true at today’s Olympic Games as does the Olympic spirit, which was exemplified by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, in the Olympic creed that was introduced in 1908:

“The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.”

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Chrös McDougall is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.