Olympic Games. They are stories of winners and losers, of dreams fulfilled and hopes dashed. The Games provide anecdotes that would be too cheesy for any screenplay.
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- Every Olympic Games event writes its own stories. Here is an overview of them - from 1896 to 2021.
The strangest episodes date back to antiquity. One of them is that of Emperor Nero, who wanted to become Olympic champion in the early years of our era and had himself declared the winner of the chariot race, even though he had fallen off the chariot.
Strange things have also happened in more recent times. In 1960, the IOC honored a Dane who had doped himself to death. Knud Enemark Jensen collapsed during the 100 km race and died. The organizing committee of the Rome Games awarded him a gold medal. At that time, doping was still considered a trivial offense.
The history of the Olympic Games is full of trouvailles like this.
1896 in Athens
... Spyridon Louis won the race from Marathon to Athens. He benefited from the fact that Albin Lermusiaux, who was in the lead after 20 km, and Edwin Flack, who led until shortly before the end, had to give up because they drank only alcohol during the race.
1900 in Paris
... John Arthur Jarvis, a baker by trade, became one of the fattest Olympic champions of all time. Jarvis was a permanent swimmer and ahead of his time. He mastered the so-called "hand-over-hand swim", the forerunner of the crawl style. Jarvis won the 1000m and 4000m races by a margin of 1:13.4 and 10:31.4 minutes respectively.
1904 in St. Louis
... George Lyon became the Olympic golf champion. Before teeing off, he relaxed with handstands; he irritated the competition by singing songs and telling jokes. Lyon walked on his hands to the award ceremony. In 1908, Lyon traveled in vain across the Atlantic to the Games in London. He had not noticed that golf had been removed from the program.
1908 in London
... hurdler Forrest Smithson proved his technical superiority by running with a Bible in his left hand and still won gold. In the marathon, Dorando Pietri was the first to enter the stadium, but in a state of fading senses he fell five times on the final lap. Jack Andrew, the organizer, helped Pietri across the finish line - and later disqualified him for "using outside help".
1912 in Stockholm
... there were no rules in wrestling. That's why Estonian Martin Klein and Finn Alfred Asikainen wrestled for 10:15 hours in the middleweight division before the fight was stopped. The light heavyweight final between the Finn Ivar Böhling and the Swede Anders Ahlgren lasted nine hours, with the two mostly just looking each other in the eye. This fight was also stopped. Both wrestlers won silver.
1920 in Antwerp
... Hubert van Innis won his sixth gold medal in archery at the age of 54. The Belgian had won his first medals in Paris in 1900, in between which he was never able to compete for various reasons, otherwise he would probably have broken all Olympic records.
1924 in Paris
... the American boxer Joe Lazarus was declared the loser by the judges after knocking out the Swede Oscar Andren.
1928 in Amsterdam
... the fight between the Argentinian fans and the police was not part of the Olympic boxing tournament, but was the low point of the event. Previously, Lambertus van Klaveren had been declared the winner over the Argentinian Victor Peralta, although nobody apart from the judges had seen the Dutchman as the winner.
1932 in Los Angeles
... Brazil sent its athletes assortments of coffee beans, which had to be sold to finance the team. The rules of wrestling allowed the German Wolfgang Ehrl to fight for five victories, one against the gold medal winner Giovanni Gozzi from Italy, remain undefeated and still only finish second.
1936 in Berlin
... Dora Ratjen took part in the high jump. 21 years later, Ratjen surprised everyone by "coming out": her real first name was Hermann instead of Dora; the Nazi movement had forced her to masquerade. Hitler's Germany's calculation did not work out, Ratjen only came in 4th place. Instead, Stella Walasiewicz from Poland won silver in the 100m. When she died in 1980, it was discovered that "he" was not a woman.
1948 in London
... Sweden was disqualified as the team winner in dressage. The Scandinavians had promoted Sergeant Gehnäll Persson to lieutenant for the duration of the Games because only officers and gentlemen (rich civilians) were allowed to compete in dressage. Persson did not wear an officer's cap, which is why the "trick" was discovered.
1952 in Helsinki
... the couple Dana Zatopkova/Emil Zatopek shone. They won four gold medals. Two months before the Games, Emil Zatopek's doctor had banned him from taking part due to an infection. Zatopek, known as the "locomotive" because of his stomping running style, was left behind over 5000 m, but heroically fought his way past his opponents. Zatopek later played an active role in the "Prague Spring" and was removed from office.
1956 in Melbourne
... Hungary faced the Soviet Union in water polo - shortly after the bloody suppression of the Hungarian uprising. Water polo took on a new dimension that day. It was a battle that was stopped by the referees when the score was 4:0 in favor of Hungary. The intermediate result was taken into account, so that in the end Hungary won gold and the Soviet Union bronze.
1960 in Rome
... Abebe Bikila, a soldier in the Ethiopian palace guard, won the marathon. Bikila ran the race barefoot and said afterwards that he had run like this all his life and would continue to do so in the future. In 1964, only the marketers caught up with Bikila: In his title defense, he wore socks and Puma shoes, distancing the competition by five minutes. The third-placed Japanese Kokichi Tsuburaya could not cope with the humiliation. He became depressed, felt there was no chance of continuing his career and committed suicide.
1964 in Tokyo
... the flyweight boxer Choh Dong-Kih made the sit-down strike historic. The Korean had previously been disqualified for a headbutt. Because he did not want to accept the verdict, he sat down in the middle of the ring for 51 minutes. Then he went - and went down in history.
1968 in Mexico
... the Soviet boxer Boris Lagutin became Olympic champion, just like in 1964. At the start of the first fight, however, he attacked the referee instead of his opponent. When the spectators threw coins into the ring, he realized the mistake. He had already struggled to show his skills in 1960. The first opponent was disqualified, the second did not compete, the third, and this was already in the final, was disqualified again because he could not believe that Lagutin had started wrestling instead of boxing.
1972 in Munich
... Russian weightlifter Vasily Alexeyev won gold in the super-heavyweight category after eating 26 fried eggs for breakfast.
1976 in Montreal
... the colored wrestler Lloyd Keaser believed after five victories that he could lose by any amount with a point (successful hold) and still win gold. He did this on purpose (1:12). However, Keaser and the American delegation had miscalculated. Keaser only won silver.
1980 in Moscow
... over 60 nations were absent due to the war in Afghanistan. The standard in some sports was unspeakably poor. In show jumping, where Russia won the Nations Cup, the participants were not Olympic-caliber. The entire course had to be rebuilt after almost every rider.
1984 in Los Angeles
... the entire Eastern Bloc was absent due to boycotts. The architect of the Olympic Stadium was not unhappy about this. Shortly before the start of the Games, the German Uwe Hohn had shocked the experts with a javelin world record of 104.80 meters. Because Hohn had made the stadiums too small, the regulations for the construction of the javelin were changed.
1988 in Seoul
... tennis player Alvaro Jordan spent a week enjoying life among the other athletes in the Olympic village. The Colombian had to leave one day before his doubles match (he did not qualify for the singles) because his boss did not extend his vacation.
1992 in Barcelona
... the amateur boxing association surprised its judges with an alcohol test at half-time of the games. A dozen had exceeded the limit of 0.7 per mille.
1996 in Atlanta
... boxer Paea Wolfgramm from the Tonga Islands won silver. Wolfgramm, a 140-kg hunk with an impressive waist, had boxed for the first time shortly before the Games. The South Sea islanders, who are among the heaviest nations, were asked to fast and pray in the name of the king. If Wolfgramm had won the final, the king would have given him half of Tonga as a gift.
2000 in Sydney
... British judoka Debbie Allan performed a striptease at the weighing ceremony. Because the scales were still showing too much, the European champion in the 52 kg category tore off her underwear out of desperation after cutting off her hair and sweating for three hours. Nothing helped: 50 grams too much meant her elimination from the Olympics.
2004 in Athens
...Britain's Paula Radcliffe was sent packing by her sponsor after she gave up in both the 10,000 m and the marathon. The manufacturer of Bircher muesli had advertised with Radcliffe and the slogan: "It helps you to the finish line". The US gymnasts were luckier with their sponsor. They cooperated with Kansas City's most popular radio station. They played the same song without interruption until enough money had been donated.
2008 in Beijing
... Angel Matos, Olympic champion in taekwondo in Sydney, went berserk in the bronze medal match. The Cuban was leading 3:2 when he injured his foot during an action. Matos was disqualified because he was unable to fight again at the end of the treatment period. He then lost his nerve and put the referee out of action with perfect footwork. Matos was banned for life.
London 2012
... four teams deliberately wanted to lose in the preliminary round of badminton in order to reach the seemingly easier half of the table in the knockout phase. It soon became clear that the loser would be the one who accidentally hit the shuttlecock over the net instead of into it. The teams were hoping for a better starting position for the knockout phase. The calculation did not work out. All eight players were eliminated.
2016 in Rio
... Brazil's laws required 75 lifeguards to be on duty at all times during swimming due to the large number of visitors (including spectators). A fast food giant, an Olympic sponsor since 1976, limited the free food in the athletes' village because eating became a challenge. The Sri Lankan-born badminton player Sawan Serasinghe, competing for Australia, ordered 27 cheeseburgers, 40 chicken nuggets, 12 desserts and 1 Coke Zero for himself. After Rio, McDonalds ended its sponsorship commitment after 40 years.
2021 in Tokyo
... no spectators were allowed due to the Covid pandemic. Even the helpers were instructed to look away. There were two Olympic champions in the high jump because Qatari Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italian Gianmarco Tamberi refused to compete again in a tie-breaker. Eddy Alvarez became only the sixth athlete to win a medal in summer and winter. Alvarez won silver with the US baseball team in Tokyo. In skateboarding, Japan's Cocona Hiraki (12) and Britain's Sky Brown (13) won silver and bronze before they had even finished school. They are among the youngest Olympic medal winners of all time.
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