The 1904 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the III Olympiad and also known as St. Louis 1904) were an international multi-sport event held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from 1 July to 23 November 1904. Many events were conducted at what is now known as Francis Field on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. This was the first time that the Olympic Games were held outside Europe.
Tensions caused by the Russo–Japanese War and difficulties in traveling to St. Louis resulted in very few top-class athletes from outside the United States and Canada taking part in the 1904 Games. Only 69–74 of the 651 athletes who competed came from outside North America, and only between 12 and 15 nations were represented in all. Some events subsequently combined the U.S. national championship with the Olympic championship. The current three-medal format of gold, silver and bronze for first, second and third place was introduced at the 1904 Olympics.
Background
After the first two editions of the Olympic Games were awarded to Athens and Paris, the IOC's first open bidding process was held for the 1904 Olympics at the 4th IOC Session in Paris in May 1901. Chicago civic leaders, including University of Chicago president William Rainey Harper, formed the International Olympian Games Association in February 1901 to plan for hosting the Olympics. Shortly before the session began, another American bid was submitted from St. Louis, which was then preparing to host the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, a World's Fair in 1903.
However, after St. Louis was forced to postpone its World's Fair from 1903 to 1904, it began planning athletic events that would compete directly with the Olympics in Chicago. The Amateur Athletic Union favored St. Louis and planned to hold its national championships at the World's Fair. In the meantime, Chicago's plans for a new stadium on the shore of Lake Michigan seating 75,000 met considerable opposition from local leaders, including Aaron Montgomery Ward, putting the centerpiece of Chicago's Olympic bid into question. On December 23, 1902, fearing that the dispute would permanently damage the Olympic movement, the IOC asked its members to approve, by a postal vote, the transfer of the Olympic Games to St. Louis. When the votes were tallied, IOC founder Pierre de Coubertin telegraphed the Chicago committee on February 10, 1903, to inform them that the Games had been moved.
The team representing Great Britain was awarded a total of two medals, both won by Irish athletes. The top non-U.S. athlete was Emil Rausch of Germany, who won three swimming events. Zoltán Halmay of Hungary and Charles Daniels of the United States each won two swimming gold medals. Galt Football Club from Canada won the gold medal in football.
The sporting event itself took place with the participation of about 100 paid indigenous men. Contests included "baseball throwing, shot put, running, broad jumping, weight lifting, pole climbing, and tugs-of-war before a crowd of approximately ten thousand". No women participated in Anthropology Days, though some, notably the Fort Shaw Indian School girls basketball team, did compete in other athletic events at the LPE.
According to theorist Susan Brownell, world's fairs – with their inclusion of human zoos – and the Olympics were a logical fit at this time, as they "were both linked to an underlying cultural logic that gave them a natural affinity". Also, one of the original intentions of Anthropology Days was to create publicity for the official Olympic events.
Sports
alt=Man diving into the water|thumb|Frank Kehoe (aka Keogh) of the Chicago Athletic Association during the fancy diving competition at the 1904 Olympics. Photograph by Jessie Tarbox Beals. Missouri Historical Society.
The 1904 Summer Olympic program featured 16 sports encompassing 95 events in 18 disciplines. Swimming, diving and water polo are considered three disciplines of the same sport, aquatics. In July 2021 the IOC accepted the recommendation of Olympic historian Bill Mallon regarding which sports and events should be considered as Olympic. The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.
New sports
thumb|right|280px|[[Francis Olympic Field, Washington University in St. Louis, 1904]]
Boxing made its Olympic debut at the St. Louis Games. The sport has since featured at every Summer Olympics, except for the 1912 Stockholm Games.
While wrestling made a return, it was exclusively the newly debuted catch wrestling (which later became freestyle wrestling) as opposed to Greco-Roman style of the 1896 Summer Olympics. Five nations were represented, with each of the 42 competitors having resided in the United States. Later editions would have both styles of wrestling in their programs.
Demonstration sports
Basketball, hurling, American football and Gaelic football were featured as unofficial sports. There was a demonstration bout of women's boxing. Baseball is also noted by the World Baseball Softball Confederation to have appeared at the Games, though it does not appear in the list compiled by Olympic historian Bill Mallon
Creve Coeur Lake became the first park of St. Louis County in 1945. The Lake has hosted rowing regattas since 1882 and still hosts them as of 2010. Francis Olympic Field and Gymnasium are still in use on the Washington University in St. Louis campus as of 2021. An ornamental gate commemorating the 1904 Games was constructed outside the stadium immediately after the Exposition. Glen Echo Country Club remains in use as a golf course today as of 2021.
|-
|| Francis Olympic Field|| Archery, Athletics, Cycling, Football, Gymnastics, Lacrosse, Roque, Tennis, Tug of war, Weightlifting, Wrestling || align="right"|19,000
| align=center|
|-
|| Francis Gymnasium || Boxing, Fencing|| align="right"|Not listed
| align=center|
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|| Forest Park || Diving, Swimming, Water polo || align="right"|Not listed
| align=center|
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|| Glen Echo Country Club || Golf|| align="right"|Not listed
| align=center|
|}
Participating nations
[[File:1904 Summer Olympic games countries.png|thumb|400px|Participants.
<br /><span style="color:#1e90ff;">Blue</span> = Participated for the first time
<br /><span style="color:#00ff7f;">Green</span> = Previously participated
<br />Host city (St Louis) marked by yellow square]]
thumb|400px|Number of athletes from each country
Athletes from thirteen nations competed in St. Louis. Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of known competitors for each nation. Due to the difficulty of getting to St. Louis in 1904, and European tensions caused by the Russo-Japanese War, only 69–74 athletes from outside North America participated in the Olympics.
{| class="wikitable collapsible" style="width:100%;"
|-
! Participating National Olympic Committees
|-
|
- (host)
|}
Disputed
Some sources also list athletes from the following nations as having competed at these Games:
- border|22px Newfoundland Colony (1)<!-- note that the dominion of Newfoundland was only created in 1907 -->
Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed sortable" style="border:0;"
|-
! Country
! Athletes
|-
| ||align=center| 528
|-
| ||align=center| 56
|-
| ||align=center| 22
|-
| ||align=center| 14
|-
| ||align=center| 8
|-
| ||align=center| 4
|-
| ||align=center| 3
|-
| ||align=center| 3
|-
| ||align=center| 3
|-
| ||align=center| 2
|-
| ||align=center| 2
|-
| ||align=center| 2
|-
| ||align=center| 1
|- class="sortbottom"
|style="text-align:right; border:0px; background:#fff;"| Total ||style="text-align:center; border:0px; background:#fff;"| 648
|-
|}
Medal count
These are the nations that won medals at the 1904 Games.
thumb|upright=1.2|The silver medal of the 1904 Olympics for the 800 meter run
Notes on medalists
The nationalities of some medalists were disputed, as many American athletes were recent immigrants to the United States who had not yet been granted U.S. citizenship. In July 2021, the IOC accepted the recommendations of Olympic historian Bill Mallon, and adjusted their database with regard to the following cases:
- In 2009, historians from the International Society of Olympic Historians discovered that cyclist Frank Bizzoni, believed to be an American, was still an Italian citizen when he competed in 1904: he received U.S. citizenship in 1917.
- Two Norwegian-American wrestlers, Charles Ericksen and Bernhoff Hansen won gold medals. In 2012, Norwegian historians found documentation showing that Ericksen did not receive American citizenship until March 22, 1905, while Hansen probably never received American citizenship. The historians therefore petitioned the IOC to have the athletes registered as Norwegians. In May 2013, it was reported that the Norwegian Olympic Committee had filed a formal application for changing the nationality of the wrestlers in the IOC's medal database, which was done.
- Swimmer and multi-medalist Francis Gailey was an Australian who traveled to America in 1902 and competed in 1904 for the Olympic Club of San Francisco. He returned to America in 1906, sailing to San Francisco on the SS Sonoma, became a naturalized citizen, and worked as an insurance clerk in California. He lived for a time in Ontario, Canada, where he married Mary Adams in 1914 or 1915, finally settling in southern California in 1918 and working as a foreman in the oil industry
- Multi-medalist Frank Kugler of Germany, a member of the St. Louis Southwest Turnverein team, was granted U.S. citizenship in 1913.
- Gustav Tiefenthaler was born in Switzerland, but the family moved to the United States when he was a child. He represented the South Broadway AC in St. Louis. At the Olympics, Tiefenthaler wrestled one bout and lost, but earned a bronze medal.
- French-American Albert Corey won silver medals in the marathon, and in the team race as part of a mixed team (together with four undisputed Americans).
- Austrian gymnast Julius Lenhart won gold and silver medals in individual events and gold medal in team competition as a part of a mixed team.
In addition, the IOC had counted one gold, one silver, and two bronze medals won by the American fencer Albertson Van Zo Post for Cuba instead of the United States. The IOC also had shown Charles Tatham as a Cuban medal-winner for individual fencing events (foil and épée) and American silver medalist in the team foil event, but he was an American. All are now credited to the United States.
See also
References
External links
- The Olympic Games 1904, Charles J.P. Lucas
- Spalding's Athletic Almanac for 1905
- Photos of the 1904 Olympics from the Missouri History Museum