Of course the Olympics as a spectacle dates back to ancient Greece. The modern Olympics, similarly, returned to its roots when the Games of the I Olympiad were held from April 6-15, 1896 in Athens. 241 athletes from 14 nations competed in 43 events. The happiest moment for the host country came when a Greek goat herder-turned-water carrier named Spyridon Louis won the marathon (which started in, uh, Marathon) by seven minutes wearing shoes that had been donated by his townspeople. The Olympic Stadium in 2004 - also hosted in Athens and surrounding areas - was built in Amarousi, Louis' birthplace, and named after him.
Other events in 1896 were more problematic. For the 1200m (approximately 3/4 of a mile) swim a boat dropped the contestants 1200 meters from shore and had them swim back on their own. Hungarian swimmer Alfred Hajos later said that his "will to live completely overcame [his] desire to win." He won. And while stories like these are fairly typical of the early Olympic games, none was as wild as the 1904 Olympics - the Games of the III Olympiad - in St. Louis, Missouri. This marked the beginning of the whole St. Louis-Chicago rivalry.
First of all, after being held in Athens (1896) and Paris (1900), how in the world did St. Louis end up with the 3rd modern Olympics? Chicago and St. Louis both had bid for the Games, and the organizers also considered New York City and Philadelphia. Chicago won. The Chicago Tribune wrote: "St. Louis tried to get the Olympian games but the International committee seems to have decided that St. Louis wouldn't know what to do with them" before remarking that beating "a small city like St. Louis is nothing to be specially proud of."
But The Louisiana Purchase Exposition aka The World's Fair was already being planned for St. Louis to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Organizers of the 1904 World's Fair threw a fit and told the Chicago Olympic Committee that anything they had planned would be upstaged by the World's Fair, including a separate track & field championship. Pierre de Coubertin, the "Father of the Modern Olympic Games" stepped in and ultimately moved the Games to St. Louis, though he didn't attend and later said, "I had a sort of presentiment that the Olympiad would match the mediocrity of the town."
St. Louis hosted the last major World's Fair until after World War I. Over the course of the seven-month run, some 12 million people visited St. Louis to see the wonders it had to hold: the Liberty Bell was brought from Philadelphia, India built a replica of the Taj Mahal, Ireland a replica of Blarney Castle. Geronimo would give you an autograph for ten cents. The 1904 Democratic National Convention took place alongside the Fair in the summer. Teddy Roosevelt visited and said it was "fine." The ice cream cone - though patented in 1903 - became a nationwide hit at the St. Louis World's Fair. Iced tea was invented. There were re-enactments of the naval battles of the Spanish-American War (which happened in 1898), as well as "villages" built by the Igorrote tribe of The Philippines, the most recently-acquired American colony thanks to the outcome of the Spanish-American War. It was pretty racist.
How racist? In August Games organizers showcased "Anthropology Days" in which "uncivilized tribes" took part in a two-day athletic contest of various events such as the greased-pole climb and mud-slinging. These events took place while they participated in what was known as the "Human Zoo" exhibit, so World's Fair visitors could gawk at the participants. There was a Model School live exhibit, in which Native Americans showed off their successful assimilation into white culture. Anyway, Ainus, Patagonians, Pygmies, the aforementioned Igorrotes, and Sioux were all paid to participate in the Olympic events, but weren't shown how to actually play the games. Predictably, it didn't go well. Organizer and AAU founder James Sullivan said the lesson was that "the savage has been a very much overrated man from an athletic point of view."
De Coubertin said the Anthropology Days were "an outrageous charade," and that "it will of course lose its appeal when black men, red men and yellow men learn to run, jump and throw, and leave the white men behind them."
In all, 62 countries were represented at the World's Fair of 1904 - far more than would participate in the 1904 Olympics. Thanks to the rising tensions in Asia with the Russo-Japanese War (sometimes known as World War Zero due to the participation of the empires involved, all their colonies, and the worldwide attention the war received) and the cost and difficulty of even getting to St. Louis at all, the Olympics brought amateur athletes from just 12 nations and only 62 of the 651 Olympic athletes were from somewhere other than North America. This number, however, includes cyclist Frank Bizzoni, whom the United States claimed despite Buzzoni maintaining Italian citizenship until 1917.
239 of the 280 medals awarded went to the United States. The country with the second-highest number of medals was Germany, with 13.
Three of the five locations were on the grounds of the World's Fair. 1904 was the first instance of the Olympics awarding Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals to the three top finishers, and also marked the debut of boxing, dumbbells, freestyle wrestling, and the decathlon. There was an event known as the Vault, which included jumping over a pommel horse longways without a springboard.
George Eyser, born in Germany and who had moved to Denver at 14 years old, lost his left leg as a child when it was run over by a train. Eyser moved to St. Louis in the early 1900s and worked as a bookkeeper. His new left leg was wooden. Eyser won six medals in one day - three gold, two silvers, and a bronze. It would be 104 years before another amputee competed in the Olympics.
In Swimming, there was a showdown between two powerhouses: Hungarian Zoltan Halmay and American John Scott Leary. Leary was the first American to swim 100 yards in 80 seconds and had won 17 straight races. Halmay would be the first athlete to medal in five separate Olympic Games. Halmay won the 100 meter event in 1904. But in the 50m swim, Halmay apparently beat Leary by a foot. An American judge said Leary won after Leary yelled that Halmay had interfered with him. How do you solve this conundrum in an era before video? Well, after the Hungarian judge and the American judge got into a literal fight, they issued a rematch. Halmay won.
George Poage was born in Hannibal, Missouri but grew up in La Crosse, Wisconsin where he was the salutatorian of the Class of 1899 and the school's first African-American graduate. He enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in 1900 and ran track (the first black athlete to run track at UW). Poage graduated in 1903 with a degree in History and enrolled to take graduate classes in History, as well. In June 1904 Poage became the first African-American Big Ten track and field champion, winning the 220-yard hurdles and the 440-yard dash.
Of course the Olympic crowds were segregated. African-American leaders encouraged Poage to boycott the Games but, for whatever reason, he chose to run where he became the first African-American to medal at the Olympics, taking bronze medals in the 200-meter and 400-meter hurdles. He retired from running after the 1904 Olympics and was a principal and teacher in St. Louis before moving to Chicago and working for the Postal Service.
The marathon was particularly bizarre. The course wasn't closed off for the entire distance, so runners had to dodge delivery wagons and pedestrians. It was 90 degrees at 3pm, when the race started, so 18 of the 32 competitors withdrew from exhaustion. It was a dirt course, and all the support vehicles kicked up dust all over the place. The only watering station was a well at about the 11-mile mark, part of a "purposeful dehydration" research project initiated by Sullivan. Since it was well water, a lot of runners got sick, unaccustomed to it. California runner William Garcia's esophagus was so coated in dust that it ripped the lining of his stomach and he was hospitalized with hemorrhaging. South African's Jan Mashiani, a black South African, was chased off the course by a pack of wild dogs.
Felix Carvajal de Soto was a Cuban mailman who had never run in a race before. Naturally he competed in the marathon in St. Louis after sailing to New Orleans and losing all his money on a dice game. He had to hitchhike his way up the Mississippi River as a result. The start of the marathon was delayed while race organizers determined if his long pants and street shoes were acceptable to run in. They weren't, and a fellow runner got a pair of scissors and cut his trousers at the knee. He stopped numerous times along the course to chat with onlookers and practice his English. Carvajal ran past an apple orchard, where he picked a few apples and got stomach cramps that caused him to lay down on the course for a few minutes. He finished fourth.
Carvajal returned to the Olympics in 1906 (again held in Athens) and had his expenses paid by the Cuban government. He landed in Italy but never showed up in Athens. Feared dead, the Cuban newspapers published his obituary. Carvajal showed up later in Havana aboard a Spanish steamer, and then turned pro.
Thomas Hicks, a clown by profession who dabbled in distance running (6th at the 1900 Boston Marathon, 5th in 1901, 2nd in 1904), bonked at 16 miles. With ten miles remaining he was given a dose of strychnine and egg whites - the first confirmed use of doping in modern Olympic history. He got another dose of strychnine (keep in mind this is rat poison) and several shots of brandy over the course of the race. Hicks started hallucinating, begging for something to eat as he thought the finish line was 20 miles away, not the one mile it actually was. One more dose of strychnine would have been fatal. When Hicks eventually staggered across the finish line he saw Fred Lorz - a New York City bricklayer whose job forced him to do his training runs at night - taking photographs with Alice Roosevelt, Teddy's daughter.
Word spread along the spectators that they didn't actually see Lorz running and it was soon discovered that Lorz cramped up at nine miles and his manager drove him back to the stadium where the finish line was. The car broke down about five miles from the finish line so Lorz got out, ran the final section and crossed the finish line. Lorz was banned for life by the AAU and was reinstated after apologizing for his "joke," saying that he had gone "temporarily insane." Lorz won the 1905 Boston Marathon. Hicks was named the winner of the 1904 Olympic Marathon. He lost eight pounds over the course of the race and it took four doctors an hour of medical treatment for Hicks to even be able to leave the course. Hicks later said, "Never in my life have I run such a tough course. The terrific hills simply tear a man to pieces."
The 1904 Olympic games were an absolute mess, a side-show to the World's Fair which was a tribute to American imperialism and technological advances. But it was pretty hilarious, as well.
