HISTORY OF 1896 OLYMPICS

ATHENS 1896

Games of the I Olympiad

The revival of the ancient Olympics attracted athletes from 14 nations, with the largest delegations coming from Greece, Germany, France and Great Britain. On 6 April 1896, the American James Connolly won the triple jump to become the first Olympic champion in more than 1,500 years. Winners were awarded a silver medal and an olive branch. The German athlete Carl Schumann finished in the top five events of three different sports. The people of Athens greeted the Games with great enthusiasm. Their support was rewarded when a Greek shepherd, Spyridon Louis, won the most popular event, the marathon.

14 NOCs (Nations)

241 athletes (0 women, 241 men)

43 events

CEREMONIES

Athens 1896. Closure Ceremony. The procession of the medal-holders. At the head Spyridon Louis (GRE) 1st in the marathon.

Official opening of the Games by: His Majesty The King George I

Lighting the Olympic Flame by: The Olympic flame was first lit during the opening ceremony of the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

Olympic Oath by: The first athletes' oath was sworn at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium.

Official Oath by: The first officials' oath was sworn at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

HIGHLIGHTS

Alfréd Hajos (HUN-swimming) won the 100m and the 1,200m events. For the longer race, the swimmers were transported by boat and left to swim back to shore alone. According to Hajos, "I must say that I shivered at the thought of what would happen if I got a cramp from the cold water. My will to live completely overcame my desire to win."

KEY FACTS

Opening date:06 April 1896

Closing date:15 April 1896


Country of the host city: Greece (GRE)

Candidate cities:
The first Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was held in Paris on 18-23 June 1894. It was during the first Session that the city of Athens was selected for the Games of the I Olympiad.

Sports: 9
Athens 1896 : Sports on the program

Aquatics, Athletics , Cycling ,Fencing ,Gymnastics ,Shooting ,Tennis
Weightlifting , Wrestling


Athens 1896
Medal Table



Nation Gold Silver Bronze

1. United States of America USA 11 7 2
2. Greece GRE 10 17 19
3. Germany GER 6 5 2
4. France FRA 5 4 2
5. Great Britain GBR 2 3 2
6. Hungary HUN 2 1 3
7. Austria AUT 2 1 2
8. Australia AUS 2 0 0
9. Denmark DEN 1 2 3
10. Switzerland SUI 1 2 0
11. Mixed team ZZX 1 1 1

John BOLAND
The Spectator Who Won an Olympic Championship

John Boland was an Oxford student who enjoyed the study of Greek mythology. When learned about the Olympics revival, Boland traveled to Athens to watch the Olympic Games as a spectator. However, his friend, Thrasyvoalos Manaos, Secretary of the Athens 1896 Organising Committee, entered Boland into the tennis competition. Despite competing with leather-soled shoes with heels, Boland won the competition and became an Olympic champion. He later became a Member of Parliament and an ardent proponent of Irish independence and the Irish language.

James CONNOLLY
The First Champion of the Modern Olympics

On 6 April 1896, James Connolly won the triple jump (then two hops and a jump), and thus became the first Olympic champion in 1527 years. He also placed second in the high jump and third in the long jump. A 27-year-old undergraduate student, Connolly dropped out of Harvard University and traveled to Athens by freighter and train, arriving the day before the Olympics began. Connolly later became a well-known journalist and novelist and was offered an honorary doctorate by Harvard, which he turned down.

Alfred HAJOS
My Will to Live Completely Overcame My Desire to Win

Alfred Hajos was 13 years old when he felt compelled to become a good swimmer after his father drowned in the Danube River. The first Olympic swimming contests, at the 1896 Athens Games, were held in the Bay of Zea in water with a temperature of only 13 degrees Celsius. Hajos won the 100m and the 1,200m freestyle on the same day (11 April). For the longer race, the nine entrants were transported by boat to the open water and left alone to swim back to shore. According to Hajos, "I must say that I shivered from the thought of what would happen if I got a cramp from the cold water. My will to live completely overcame my desire to win". In 1924 Hajos won a prize in the architectural division of the Olympic Art Contest.

Spyridon LOUIS
The First Marathon Champion of the Modern Games

Born on 12 January 1873 in Maroussi near Athens, Spyridon Louis, a 24-year-old Greek shepherd, became the real hero of the 1896 Games. There was no event that the Greek hosts wanted more to win than the 40,000m marathon race, which was created to honor the legend of Pheidippides, who allegedly carried the news of the Greek victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC by running from Marathon to Athens. On 10 April 1896, Louis, wearing shoes that had been donated by his fellow villagers, set off from Marathon with sixteen other runners. He took the lead four kilometres from the Panathenaic Stadium and, to the great joy of the 100,000 spectators in and around the stadium, won the race by more than seven minutes. Forty years later, Louis recalled the moments after his victory: "That hour was something unimaginable and it still appears to me in my memory like a dream…. Twigs and flowers were raining down on me. Everybody was calling out my name and throwing their hats in the air…."

Paul MASSON
Cycling Champion and Pioneer

Born in 1874, Frenchman Paul Masson won three of the six cycling events (1km time trial, 10km track race, 1,000m sprint) at the inaugural 1896 Olympics. After the Athens Games, he turned professional and changed his name to Paul Nossam (Masson spelled backwards). He placed third in the world professional sprint championship in 1897.

Carl SCHUMANN
Champion of Both Gymnastics and Wrestling

Carl Schumann won three events in gymnastics (individual horse vault and horizontal bar and parallel bars team competitions) en 1896. He also won the Greco-Roman wrestling tournament in a major upset. Schumann also competed in three events in athletics (long jump, triple jump and shot put) and in weightlifting.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise global ranking per country; the medal tables are displayed for information only.

Furthermore, the results that we publish are official and are taken from the "Official Report" - a document published for each Olympic Games by the Organising Committee. However, for the first Olympic Games (until Antwerp in 1920), it is difficult to give the exact number of medals awarded to some countries, due to the fact that teams were composed of athletes from different countries.

The medal tables by country are based on the number of medals won, with gold medals taking priority over silver and bronze. A team victory counts as one medal.

Athens 1896
The poster

Credit: IOC / Olympic Museum Collections

No official poster was made for the 1896 Olympic Games, but the cover page of the official report is often used to refer to the Games of the I Olympiad. The inscription "776-1896", like the drawing as a whole: the Olympic stadium in a newly designed horseshoe shape, the Acropolis, the girl personifying the goddess Athena and presenting the branch of wild olive intended for the victor, mark the bond between the Games of Antiquity and the first Games of the modern era.