1900 Summer Olympics

The history of the archery competition at the 1900 Olympics is one of confusion. The IOC currently lists six events with Olympic status, but a case has been made that as many as eight other events equally deserve to be considered part of official Olympic history. About 150 archers competed in the six events that later had official status conferred. However, as many as 5,000 were involved in archery competition in conjunction with the 1900 World's Fair. Belgian Hubert Van Innis took two gold medals and one silver and would add to his tally twenty years later in Antwerp.

Ray Ewry, the winner of the standing high jump and standing long jump.

The track and field events were held at the home of the Racing Club de France at the Croix-Catelan stadium in Bois de Boulogne. No track was laid and races took place on an uneven field of grass littered with trees. Additional events were held for professionals and a series of handicap races also took place. These are not considered official Olympic events.

In the seven events contested over 400 metres or less, the United States took 13 out of a possible 21 medals. Athletes from Columbia University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania all won gold medals. Indeed, two would-be dentists from the University of Pennsylvania were among the stars of the Games. Alvin Kraenzlein won 4 individual gold medals, a feat that has never repeated, while Walter Tewksbury took five medals including two golds. The hurdles in the 400 m hurdle race were 30-foot (9.1 m)-long telegraph poles arranged on the track and the race, uniquely in Olympic competition, had a water jump on the final straight. Adolphe Klingelhoeffer, who had Brazilian citizenship in 1900, competed for France in three events.

United States dominance in sprinting was matched in the longer track races by United Kingdom. Only George Orton, who won Canada's first Olympic title in the shorter of the two steeplechases, ruined a perfect record for the British. Orton won his title less than an hour after placing third in the 400 metre hurdles.

Michel Théato
Winner of the Marathon

The most contentious of all the events in these Games began and ended in the Bois de Boulogne. Intended to follow the track of the old city wall, the course was poorly marked out and runners often got lost and had to double back on themselves before continuing. On some parts of the course, runners had to contend with distractions from cars, bicycles, pedestrians and animals. Arthur Newton of the United States finished fifth but stated he had not been passed by any other runner during the race. Another American, Richard Grant, claimed he was run down by a cyclist as he made ground on the leaders. French honour seemed to have been satisfied when Michel Théato crossed the finish line and a military band struck up La Marseillaise. However, modern research has revealed that Théato was born in Luxembourg and maintained Luxembourgian citizenship throughout his life.

Rudolf Bauer of Hungary won the discus

The Hungarian discus thrower Rudolf Bauer was the only non-American crowned as Olympic Champion. American domination was even greater in the field events than the track events, with outstanding performances coming from Ray Ewry and Irving Baxter. Ewry started his Olympic career with a sweep of the three standing jumps, while Baxter finished second to Ewry three times and won both the regular high jump and pole vault. Meyer Prinstein became the first Jewish Olympic gold medalist in the triple jump.

A competitor at the Pelota tournament

The chistera form of the game was played at this, the sport's only appearance at full Olympic level. Two pairs entered and the Spanish partnerships of Amezola and Villota became their nations' first Olympic champions. The mano form of the game and a chistera tournament for professional players were contested unofficially.

Poster of the only Olympic cricket match

After the withdrawal of teams from the Netherlands and Belgium, only two teams played in the cricket tournament. A team made up of players from the Albion Cricket Club and the Standard Athletic Club, two Paris clubs consisting almost exclusively of British expatriates, played a touring team from the southwest of England. The Devon and Somerset Wanderers were no more than a team of competent club cricketers (made up from Blundells School old boys and members of Castle Cary Cricket Club), and only Montagu Toller and Alfred Bowerman were deemed good enough to play at county level for Somerset. The game was played before a small crowd at the Vélodrome de Vincennes. An emphatic second innings bowling performance from Toller captured victory for the visitors as time appeared to be running out for them. If the French had held out for five more minutes the game would have been a draw.[27] Knowledge of the game would have been lost but for the forethought of John Symes, a member of the victorious team, who kept a scorecard in his own writing.

The croquet tournament was notable as it marked the first appearance of women at Olympic level. Madame Desprès, Madame Filleul-Brohy and Mademoiselle Ohier were eliminated in the first round of competition. All players were French. A single paying spectator attended the tournament, an elderly English gentleman who travelled from Nice for the early stages. An unofficial two-ball handicap competition was also held.

The home nation won six of the nine medals available. A number of unofficial events were held for both amateurs and professionals.

Equestrian sport made its debut at the Olympic Games with three jumping events being held, plus two other events. The Italian rider Gian Giorgio Trissino won a gold and a silver. He narrowly missed making Olympic history by winning two medals in the same event. Competing with two different horses in the high jump, he jointly won the gold medal and finished in 4th place on his second horse.

Italo Santelli (left) and Jean-Baptiste Mimiague competing in the masters foil event. Mimiague won both bouts between the two.

Nineteen nations were represented in the fencing competition, which was held in a field near the cutlery exhibit at the 1900 World's Fair. French fencers dominated the proceedings but both Cuba and Italy also took titles. The early rounds of the foil competitions were judged on style rather than the actual result of the contest. This meant that some fencers were eliminated without losing a contest while others were defeated and still progressed to the next rounds.

The first football champions at the Olympics were the London amateurs of Upton Park F.C. A crowd of around 500 spectators saw them defeat their French rivals.

Margaret Ives Abbott, a student of art from Chicago, played in and won a nine-hole golf tournament on an October Tuesday in Paris. She died in 1955 without being aware that the tournament was part of the Olympic Games and she had become America's first ever female Olympic champion.

135 gymnasts took part in a competition that involved elements from track and field and weightlifting as well as gymnastic disciplines

Eight separate tournaments were held in 1900 as part of the 1900 World's Fair. Only the Grand Prix Internationale de l'Exposition is counted as an official medal event. Entries were from clubs rather than countries, and the winning Foxhunters club comprised English, Irish and American players.

Mexico won its first medal in this sport, a bronze won by Guillermo Hayden Wright, Marquez de Villavieja and three brothers: Eustaquio de Escandón y Barron, Pablo de Escandón y Barron and Manuel de Escandón y Barron.

Competitions were held on the River Seine. The coxed fours descended into farce when officials changed the qualifying criteria for the final several times. The first final was held without any of the original qualifiers, who had withdrawn as a protest against the decision to run six boats on a course laid out for only four. The officials then decided to run another "final" for the boycotting crews. Both events are considered official Olympic competitions. In a number of events crews saw the advantage of having ultra-lightweight coxswain and recruited local boys for the period of the Games. Most of these remain a mystery; some could have been under ten years old.

Scoreboard with result of France-Germany rugby game

Three teams competed in the Rugby tournament. A French representative team defeated a team from the German city of Frankfurt and Moseley Wanderers from England. The Moseley team had played a full game of rugby in England the day before they made the journey to Paris. They arrived in the morning, played the match in the afternoon and were back in their home country by the next morning. The proposed game between the British and German sides was cancelled, and both are credited as silver medalists. The Franco-Haitian centre Constantin Henriquez become the first black gold medalist.

The Olympic regatta

The 1900 sailing regatta differs from every other Olympic regatta in a number of ways. In most classes there were two distinct "finals", boats were assigned time handicaps according to their weight within each class and cash prizes were handed out to the winner of each race. The IOC initially recognized the winner of the first race in each class as Olympic champion except in the case of the 10-20 ton class, which was decided on aggregate time over three races. However currently the participants of both first and second races in 3 classes (0-0.5t, 1-2t and 2-3t) are present in the IOC database as medalists, so the second races in these 3 classes were recognized by the IOC, as recommended by Olympic historian Bill Mallon.[15] To support the IOC recognized total of 95 medal events, it appears that one more race in each of 2 other classes (0.5-1t and 3-10t) has been recognized by the IOC, per Mallon's suggestion. Thus, for five of the eight events, two gold, two silver and two bronze medals were retrospectively awarded. Races were held at both Meulan and Le Havre and medals shared among five nations. France and Great Britain were the most successful of the countries involved. A number of people named as members of medal-winning crews by the IOC have been proved not to have competed; others have their participation seriously questioned by historical research.

Switzerland's Konrad Stäheli was the outstanding marksman of the Games, taking a trio of titles and leading his country to the top of the shooting medal table. The medals were shared between six different nations. There is a debate as to whether the live pigeon shooting event was a full Olympic event, Belgian Leon Lunden shot twenty-one birds on his way to the championship. Up to thirty unofficial shooting events were also held, most involving professional marksmen. Research has shown that one of the medal events in the IOC database (25m rapid fire pistol, also called military pistol cat. 6) was contested by professionals.[15]

Swimming race in the river Seine

The muddied waters of the Seine hosted the swimming events in 1900. Run with the current, the races produced very fast times by the standards of the day. John Arthur Jarvis of Great Britain, Frederick Lane of Australia and the German Ernst Hoppenberg each won two titles. Lane received a 50-pound bronze statue of a horse as a prize. A couple of unusual events were held. The obstacle race required both swimming underneath and climbing over rows of boats while Charles de Venville stayed submerged for over a minute to win the underwater swimming event.

Charlotte Cooper, the first individual female Olympic champion

French contestant at the 1900 Olympic games Tennis tournament, at the Tennis court Cercles des Sports de l'Ile de Puteaux, Paris. Cover page of magazine La vie au grand air, No 97 from July 22nd, 1900.

A high quality men's tournament saw three past or future Wimbledon champions reach the semi-finals. Laurence Doherty reached the final when older brother Reggie stepped aside and let his sibling advance to the final. The two refused to play each other in what they considered a minor tournament. On the 11th of July a landmark was reached in the history of the Olympic Games. Charlotte Cooper, already three times Wimbledon champion, took the singles championship to become the first individual female Olympic champion, also winning the mixed doubles event.

A combined Swedish/Danish team beats France for Gold in the tug of war

A combined Sweden/Denmark team, made up of three competitors from each country, defeated the French team to win the title. One of the members of the French team was born in Colombia. They were left as the only participating teams; the United States had entered but were forced to scratch as three of their team were involved in the final of the hammer. Edgar Aaybe was a journalist covering the Games for the Danish newspaper Politiken and was asked to join the team when another puller was taken ill.

Osborne Swimming Club, representing Great Britain were unchallenged in the tournament, scoring 29 goals and conceding only 3 in their 3 matches. In the final, they limited the number of shots on goal to avoid humiliating their opponents. One of its team members was from New Zealand. Thomas William Burgess of the bronze medal-winning Libellule de Paris team, represented Great Britain in the swimming events.

The concept of "national teams" chosen by National Olympic Committees did not exist at this point in time.

IOC	Country	Athletes
FRA	France	720
GBR	Great Britain	102
BEL	Belgium	78
USA	United States	75
GER	Germany	76
NED	Netherlands	29
ITA	Italy	24
HUN	Hungary	20
SUI	Switzerland	18
AUT	Austria	13
DEN	Denmark	13
SWE	Sweden	10
ESP	Spain	8
BOH	Bohemia	7
NOR	Norway	7
MEX	Mexico	4
RUS	Russia	4
GRE	Greece	3
AUS	Australia	2
CAN	Canada	2
HAI	Haiti	2
ARG	Argentina	1
CUB	Cuba	1
IND	India	1
IRI	Iran	1
LUX	Luxembourg	1
PER	Peru	1
ROM	Romania	1
Total	1224