Paris 2024 Olympic Games: medalist at 10 years old, 300 pigeons killed, a marathon by car… unusual anecdotes in the history of the Olympic Games (1/5)

Discover unusual anecdotes from the Olympics. – MAXPPP assembly

the essential Between 1896 and 1904, the first modern Olympics left behind a few anecdotes which became legendary for some but remained too little known for others. As the Paris Olympic Games fast approach, Midi Libre rewinds the tape. Series 1/5.

No swimming pool in 1896

For the first modern Games, there was no Olympic swimming pool in Athens to host the swimming events in 1896. The 13 participants were transported in boats to the bay of Zea, one of the ports of Piraeus, off the coast of the island. rsquo;Athens.

Marked by two buoys, the starting line moved in the open sea and the competitors had to return as quickly as possible to the shore where the line was marked by a red flag.

In water at 13°C, the Hungarian Alfréd Hajós was the star of these Olympic Games, in swimming, winning the 100m freestyle but also the 1200m freestyle.

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The youngest medalist in history

First modern Olympic Games and a record that still stands almost 130 years later. Dimitrios Loundras, a gymnast aged 10 years and 216 days at the time, managed, with his teammates Fílippos Karvelás, Ioannis Mitrópoulos and Ioannis Chrysáfis, to win a bronze medal in the women's event. team parallel bars, in Athens in 1896.

Guaranteed to win a medal, because only three teams were registered, the young Greek had the merit of being selected for these first Olympics and still holds a record which should continue to last for a long time. Even if the Japanese Hiraki Kokona, aged 12, was the youngest medalist of the Tokyo Games in 2021, in skateboarding.

Failed after 2000 km on foot to register

Carlo Airoldi is Italian. While the 1896 Olympic Games launched the very first marathon: a 40-kilometer race to commemorate the race of Philipides, a Greek messenger, who had covered this distance from Marathon to Athens, to announce the victory of the Greeks over Persia ( 490 BC). Airoldi then sets out to go to Athens to register.

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Not benefiting from the necessary funds to travel to Greece by train or boat like other athletes, the 27-year-old athlete was sponsored by a Milanese newspaper La Bicicletta, for whom he documented his trip. After 28 days of travel at a rate of 70 kilometers traveled per day, Airoldi presented himself in the Greek capital but his registration was refused…

In question, a bonus of  500 pesetas received  during his victory over a  Milan-Barcelona. The Olympic Games being at the time reserved for amateurs, the Italian was considered a professional and therefore unfit.

Pigeon shooting in Paris

During the Paris Games in 1900, the pigeon shooting event resulted in the death of 300 birds. The two categories of the competition saw the Belgian Leon de Lunden and the ;Australian Donald Mackintosh kills twenty of them each to win.

An event highly appreciated by spectators of the time, the carnage caused by the Olympics pushed the organizers to change the course of the event, opting, for the following Olympics, for clay targets.

Noël Vandernotte, youngest French medalist

An Olympic medal at 12 years old. Although he is, in the history of the Games, only the third youngest medalist, notably behind the Greek Dimitrios Loundras (10 years old), the Breton Noël Vandernotte holds this record on the French side. At the 1936 Olympic Games, he won two bronze medals as coxswain in rowing.

First in the “four barred”test, notably alongside his uncles Fernand and Marcel, then later in the “two barred” rdquo; in the company of Marceau Fourcade and Georges Tapie. For his retirement, the French rower came to settle in Beaucaire, in the Gard, from which he received the city's medal of honor in 2015. He died in June. 2020, at the age of 96.

Underwater swimming, a forgotten discipline

Léon Marchand should be one of the stars of the Paris Games in 2024. If he had been born a century earlier, the Toulouse swimmer could have represented France in a discipline which has not lasted only one Olympiad: swimming underwater.

To designate a winner, the following scale was put in place: the competitors earned two points per meter swum and one point per second after their head was submerged, the winner was the one who obtained the most points at the time. ;rsquo;result of the test.

In a Seine with the quality of the water that today would repel Anne Hidalgo or even Amélie Oudéa-Castera, it is the Frenchman Charles Devendeville who by swimming  60 m in 1 min 8s, won the Olympic title at the time. The Lille resident is also the first Olympic champion in the history of French swimming.

Fred Lorz, a marathon of shame

Engaged in the marathon event during the Saint-Louis Olympics in 1904, Fred Lorz distinguished himself in a very bad way…hellip; After 15 kilometers of racing under a blazing sun and without adequate supplies, the runner from New York collapsed, crippled with cramps. The latter takes advantage of a spectator's car, which drops him off 8 kilometers from the finish.

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After redoing the icing, the cheater finishes with a bang to win the marathon, with abnormal freshness. While the winner's trophy is about to be given to him, the cheating is revealed by witnesses. Thomas Hicks is finally declared the winner : "I’won since, starting in the lead, I’was not overtaken". Lorz left the Olympic stadium to the boos of the crowd.

In Saint-Louis, the first medals

If the modern Games began in 1896, it was not until the third Olympiad, in Saint-Louis in 1904, that the famous gold and gold medals appeared. silver and bronze.

In Athens, the winner was crowned with an olive branch, obtained a silver medal and a diploma while his runner-up received a bronze medal .

The misadventure of George Lyon

Olympic golf champion in 1904 in Saint-Louis, the Canadian George Lyon (46 years old), who had only started playing eight years previously, overcame competition from the United States unienne. Four years later, to defend its title at the London Olympics, Lyon crossed the Atlantic. The tournament was to take place at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

But between the golf club and the Games Organizing Committee, the rag burns and causes all British golfers to withdraw. Upon his arrival in England, the Canadian learned that due to a lack of competitors, the tournament was canceled… no luck for the champion.