Sport:20200814Berliner-Zeitung.de/DeepEN
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Olympia 100 years ago: Long distance throw with grenade
At the age of 14, the diver Aileen Riggin is the youngest athlete in Antwerp in 1920. She strives for success, but she also wants to learn about her hosts. Between her training sessions she travels with colleagues all over Flanders, even to the battlefields of the First World War. With clogs they wade through the mud, come across trenches and bunkers. "There were still helmets of German soldiers lying around," writes the American Riggin more than sixty years later in her memoirs. "I lifted up one boot and dropped it, for in it were the remains of one foot."
On August 14, 1920, a hundred years ago, Antwerp was the site of perhaps the most unusual Olympic Games in history. A festival of deprivation and improvisation, 20 months after the primeval catastrophe of the 20th century, which cost the lives of some 17 million people. Never before, and probably never after, has a major sporting event been so marked by war. The Antwerp Games are comparatively unknown - but a few lessons could be learned for the conflict-laden present.
In the early 20th century it is not clear whether the International Olympic Committee can survive in the long term. The planned games in Berlin in 1916 ware cancelled. The IOC President Pierre de Coubertin supports the French army during the war. The "brave little Belgium" is considered to be a suitable compromise candidate for 1920. The organizers have 16 months for the preparation. They renounce an invitation to the losers of the war, and so athletes from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire are missing. Also from Russia after the October Revolution. Instead there are states that have only just emerged: Finland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia.
The US athletes arrived on a rusty military ship The anticipation is limited. The USA are still busy cleaning up after the war. Passenger ships are fully booked. And so several athletes have to cross the Atlantic on the "Princess Matoika", a rusty military ship that had previously transported 1800 corpses of soldiers to the USA. Sports official Daniel J. Ferris later reports: "We still saw the coffins. The constant smell of formaldehyde was terrible. The sportsmen slept in triple bunk beds, there were rats there too. But we had no choice, there just wasn't enough money." The crossing to Belgium takes 14 days. Several times the athletes threaten to strike, several times they get into fights with crew members. American newspapers write about the Matoika mutiny.
Belgium, before the war one of the largest industrial nations in the world, known for trade and diamond industry, is heavily marked in 1920. "There weren't enough apartments for the citizens of Antwerp, and now more than 2600 athletes were to be accommodated, which caused tension," says sports historian Roland Renson, who wrote the standard work on the 1920 Games, "The Games Reborn".
The Olympic movement was not a mass phenomenon at the time; in Belgium it was made up of a bourgeois elite, which also influenced the population with militaristic messages. A poster calling for volunteers adorns a soldier with the words: "Train together, set off together, fight together." A sports magazine shows a soldier with a tourist beside a battlefield: "Belgium liberated." Politicians also take part in the post-war interpretation. French sports official Gaston Vidal says: "It's important that France doesn't lose its prestige in sport. A prestige that we won in the most important sport: the war." New York Constitutional Court Judge Barlow Weeks believes, "Our men and women will carry our flag to victory on the field of peace."
The basis for this metaphor is also based on a sporting event the year before, reports the scientist Roland Renson. In June 1919, the "Interallierte Spiele" were held in Paris for the first and only time. Around 1500 athletes from the victorious powers meet in the Pershing Stadium, named after US General John J. Pershing. Only active or former members of the military are admitted to the competitions, most of them spend the night in barracks. In addition to the Olympic sports, the throwing of hand grenades is on the programme, along with numerous shooting competitions, which then play an important role in Antwerp in 1920. A French newspaper wrote: "Not even at Verdun was there more shooting." But rifles made in Germany are not allowed.
Salute shots, doves of peace and for the first time the Olympic oath
The IOC and the hosts also rely on fighting symbols in 1920: Thousands of visitors stream through the stadium gates for the opening ceremony. Many stop at a statue. It shows not an athlete throwing a discus, but a soldier with a grenade. Inside, Belgian soldiers line the field. The American flag bearer is accompanied by officers. Salute shots, doves of peace, the Olympic oath for the first time in history: Victor Boin invokes a "chivalrous spirit". The Belgian water polo player had destroyed enemy submarines during the war. The Olympic flag with the five rings flies in the stadium for the first time. IOC President de Coubertin: "Here and there you see a person whose gait is less powerful, whose face looks older. ...but whose strength and endurance will prevail."
Especially popular is the Belgian king, who had resisted the advance of the German army for a long time. "King Albert appeared in uniform during the Olympic Games, between competitions he visited hospitals," says sports journalist Jasper Truyens, who recently published a book about the 1920 Games. "The war was very present in the Olympic symbolism."
The king attached great importance to exchanges with athletes at the time, such as the long-distance runner Joseph Guillemot. The Frenchman had been struggling with lung pain since a mustard gas poisoning during the war, yet he still wins gold in Antwerp over 5000 meters. Behind him: the Finn Paavo Nurmi, icon of the 1924 Games in Paris.
Many athletes in Antwerp served in the war: the British middle-distance runner Albert Hill, more than four years in the army, wins gold over 800 and 1500 metres. His compatriot Jack Beresford was wounded in France, and in 1920 he won silver in rowing. The South African runner Bevil Rudd, who had broken down in enemy territory with his tank, wins over 400 metres.
For some sportsmen, war is also part of the future: American sports marksman Willis A. Lee wins five gold medals in Antwerp. As Vice Admiral of the US Navy he receives several awards during the Second World War. In 1920, the British runner Philip Noel-Baker won silver in the 1500-meter race. During the Second World War, he is Secretary of State for War Transport, and as an advocate for disarmament he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959. Life ends tragically for the US sprinter Charles Paddock, the winner of the 1920 100-meter race. As an employee of General William P. Upshur, Paddock dies in 1943 in a plane crash in Alaska.
The Belgians themselves have relatively little interest in the 1920 Olympics. The tickets are expensive and the weather is bad. Several athletes complain about bad food and temporary accommodation in schools, office buildings or on ships. Athletes from the Netherlands are angry with their officials who allow themselves comfortable hotel rooms. Especially criticized: the cold and bad smelling water of the swimming competitions. The Australian athlete Reg Collings: "The conditions were so bad that the Hawaiians spent most of the time in bed to avoid pneumonia." This is probably one of the reasons why the unified Olympic Village will be established at future games.
Many hosts are not willing to accept criticism. In the weekly newspaper Sport-Revue Belgian boxing official Rik Senten complains about the sometimes aggressive behaviour of foreign athletes: "On several occasions they have gone on a rampage. They've made corkscrews from the feathers of their mattresses. There were also thieves among the athletes. The Germans were no worse for it during the occupation of Antwerp."
At least the soccer finals are a consolation. Tens of thousands want to see the Belgian team play Czechoslovakia. Some of them, who don't have a ticket, dig their way under fences and later sit on the running track next to the grass. Newspapers state that "stadium trenches" are better than trenches. Belgium win the final 2-0, the cheers are great.
There is a wonderful special exhibition on the 1920 Olympic Games at the "Sportimonium", Belgium's sports and Olympic museum near the city of Mechelen. There, museum director Didier Rotsaert also uses the old flags, photos and certificates for workshops with young people. "With the help of sport, we can highlight social developments," says Rotsaert.
Almost nothing in the archives about the consequences of the Spanish flu
Thirty kilometres to the north, Antwerp has a long search for traces of the Olympic Games. The old stadium has long since been completely renovated, and apart from a few memorabilia in the city museum, the Museum aan de Stroom, there is little evidence of one of the most important events in Belgian history. But it was planned differently: in 2012, politicians traveled to Sweden to be inspired by the celebrations there, one hundred years after the Olympics in Stockholm. In 2013, Bart De Wever took over as mayor of Antwerp. His nationalist party, the NVA, is campaigning for a separation of Flanders from Belgium. The memory of a global sporting event hardly seems to matter to the NVA.
"We are wasting an opportunity," says historian Bram Constandt of the University of Ghent. "We can learn from 1920 that we don't always have to strive for the biggest and best games." For an essay, Constandt searched for connections between 1920, when Spanish flu had subsided with probably more than 25 million deaths, and 2020, when the Tokyo Olympics had to be postponed by a year because of Corona. "People had experienced so many disasters back then in Antwerp," says Constandt. "Politicians tightened up censorship so as not to let the mood sink any further. That's probably one of the reasons why we found almost nothing in the archives about the aftermath of the Spanish flu at Olympia."
The 1920 Games end with a financial loss, and even the sale of sports equipment, office furniture and special stamps cannot change that. The Japanese athletes have bigger problems, they run out of money during the games. They send telegrams to companies at home. And so they too can make the expensive return journey, which will take several months.