World Courant
2 hours in the past
By Hugh Schofield, Correspondent in Paris
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Paris has hosted the Summer season Olympics twice earlier than – in 1900 and 1924 (picture)
“If Greece is the birthplace of the Olympic Video games, then Paris is its dwelling.”
So begins a considerably biased account of town’s lengthy affiliation with the Video games, revealed forward of London’s failed try and host the 2012 Video games.
Paris, the writer wrote hopefully, is the place the place the Olympic motion “recovered its power after an limitless historic amnesia,” and the place “so many essential steps in its up to date development” befell.
Step one was the founding congress of the Worldwide Olympic Committee, chaired by the French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin on the Sorbonne College in June 1894.
After which got here steps two and three: the second and eighth Olympic Video games, each held within the French capital.
At present, there are nonetheless traces of each Video games. Right here and there, if you happen to look, their “legacy” continues to be very a lot alive.
Exhibition primary is the magnificent velodrome within the Bois de Vincennes, higher referred to as the Cipale (quick for Municipale), which continues to be in use 124 years after the primary Video games in Paris.
Biking was probably the most in style sports activities in 1900, however the Cipale was additionally used for gymnastics, soccer, rugby… and cricket.
La Cipale was used for the 1900 Olympic Video games and continues to be in use immediately
This hallowed floor has seen the (to date) solely Olympic cricket match happen: between England and France.
England received – however that also means France are the holders of the Olympic silver medal. That can in all probability finish in 2028, when cricket returns to Los Angeles – however who is aware of?!
La Cipale has been renovated over time, however aside from the roof, the perspective has remained unchanged.
This additionally applies to the concrete monitor with its raised bends at both finish, and there – forgotten behind the bushes within the nook – the unique urinals, a reduction for generations of hard-working biking followers!
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The opening ceremony in 1924 befell on the Colombes Stadium in north-west Paris
The 1900 Video games have been unusual occasions and are solely now being recognised as a part of the Olympic canon.
Talking of cannons, one of many uncommon occasions was artillery fireplace. There was additionally bocce, fishing, crossbow capturing, barrel-rolling and long-distance ballooning. The winner of that one landed close to Kiev.
The issue was that the Video games have been going down at precisely the identical time because the World’s Truthful in Paris, and many individuals – together with members – thought the sports activities have been a part of the World’s Truthful.
However they served an essential objective by establishing – after the primary Greek version in 1896 – that the Video games could be worldwide, and never eternally Greek.
They usually helped reinforce the concept that sport was one thing to be taken severely, not only a frivolous pastime.
The work of French scientist Etienne Jules Marey was essential on this regard. Well-known for his photographic research of athletes in motion, he satisfied many 1900 athletes to carry out in his out of doors studio (beneath what’s now Courtroom 1 at Roland-Garros).
Much less brilliantly, he despatched an anthropological questionnaire to Olympic members searching for clarification on key factors resembling: the colour of their beards; the bodily power of their grandfathers; and whether or not they had been breast-fed or bottle-fed as infants.
The 1900 Video games have been the primary to characteristic (some) ladies – in golf, tennis, crusing and croquet. By 1924, swimming, diving and fencing had been added, and 135 ladies competed.
The primary legacy of the 1924 Video games is the Colombes Stadium within the northwestern suburbs of Paris, which hosted the opening ceremony and far of the next sporting occasions.
Constructed on a former horse racing monitor, the stadium has an illustrious historical past and was France’s foremost soccer and rugby stadium for a lot of the final century, earlier than being changed by the Parc des Princes and later the Stade de France.
At present it nonetheless stands and shall be used as a venue for hockey matches through the Olympic Video games.
“For the French who love sports activities, Colombes is a spot filled with feelings,” says sports activities historian Mickael Delepine. “So many celebrities have run, kicked and tackled right here. It is stuffed with ghosts.”
For British sports activities followers, it’s nonetheless the sprinters Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell who received gold right here and have been later immortalised within the movie Chariots of Hearth.
The movie faithfully recreated the stadium at a location in Liverpool. At Colombes, the monitor is precisely the place it was 100 years in the past, with a view of the identical iron commonplace.
The 1924 Video games have been the primary to benefit from advances in communications – and successful athletes grew to become family names for the primary time. Flying Finns Paavo Nurmi and Ville Ritola dominated the middle- and long-distance races, and lengthy jumper William de Hart-Hubbard grew to become the primary black man to win an occasion.
Chariots of Hearth/Enigma Manufacturing/Hugh Hudson
The monitor at Colombes is the place Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell received Olympic gold, an occasion that was recreated within the movie Chariots of Hearth (pictured)
Colombes additionally noticed victory for the Uruguayan nationwide soccer staff, which received the primary World Cup on dwelling soil in 1930. And there was an infamously squalid rugby remaining between the US and France, the violence of which contributed to the game being banned from future Olympics. (The US received.)
The 1924 Olympics have been additionally the primary Video games to make use of the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius (Quicker, Greater, Stronger). It was additionally the primary time {that a} 50-meter pool was used with painted lanes on the underside.
One of many heroes who took benefit of this innovation was Johnny Weissmuller, who would later turn out to be well-known as Tarzan within the cinema.
All of it occurred within the purpose-built Tourelles swimming pool within the twentieth arrondissement of Paris. A century later, the pool continues to be there and is used as a coaching floor for immediately’s Olympic stars.
Inside Paris’ lengthy historical past with the Olympic Video games
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