Fosbury flop in 1906

There is no video (that I know of) from the 1896 Olympics competitions. This makes perfect sense given that the cinématographe of the Lumière brothers had made its public debut just three months before the Games. (There is supposedly a video History of the Olympic Games with the first part covering the 1896 Olympics. However, apart from some sequences showing the arrival of dignitaries at the stadium, everything else is either photos with a Ken Burns effect added, or sequences from a movie, or video from posterior Games). 

However from 1900 onwards there is a video testimony of the Games and, although not everything has been filmed, some gems do exist. I stumbled upon one of them when watching a video from the 1906, intercalatory, Olympics. (I know that the official position of the IOC is to ignore completely the 1906 Games, which, by the way, were the Games that saved the Olympics. De Coubertin did whatever was possible in order to sabotage these Games and Brundage ensured that the 1906 Olympics would be forgotten. I have written a short article on this and I will probably come back to the question in the future).

I have already presented the intriguing photo in my article on what I dubbed "the javelin option".

I give it again here, just to spare my readers the fuss of tracking it down. 

I sent the photo to the great specialist of the Olympics, B. Mallon, asking him whether he had an idea who the jumper was. (I had already corresponded with B. Mallon in the past and he had furnished me the complete archives of the decathlon scoring tables, since their inception. One day I will do something with these tables, but I do not know when). I added in my mail that I thought that the athlete was jumping in the flop style. He replied that to his eyes the style "was a variant of the scissors called the Eastern Cut-Off which was not really the flop". So, I sent him the video, pointing out that for me the style was what Fosbury called "back layout". And B. Mallon did acquiesce that in the video the jumping style did indeed look like a flop.

Still the mystery as to the identity of the jumper persisted. But I did not forget the matter completely and so, one day, I did luck out. In a page, in hungarian, writing about hungarian athletes, distinguished for their heroic deeds in the World War I, I found a mention of Lajos Gönczy. (He perished on the italian front in 1915).

Gönczy was a high jumper. He had participated in the Paris, 1900, Olympics where he won a bronze medal. He was less lucky in St. Louis where he could only manage a 4th place. (He placed also 5th in the standing high jump). There is a very funny story related to this below-par performance. In fact there are two versions of it. In the aforementioned article we read

It was recorded that he had brought some bottles of Tokaj wine as a reinforcement to the competition. It was consumed during training sessions. During the competition, he did not allow him to use the "doping agent".

The second version is less reverential.

The passion for alcohol of the Hungarian champion in the high jump Lajos Gönczy deprived him of a better appearance and an Olympic medal in the track and field events of the Saint Louis Games. Although Gönczy had travelled over many kilometres in order to participate in the organisation, he did not forget to hide in his luggage quite a few bottles of wine, so that he would not have to deny himself from his favourite drink during his stay in the USA. Nevertheless, those responsible of the Hungarian delegation, being aware of their athlete's passion, but also of his great talent as a high jumper, which would probably offer him a medal, made certain to discover the "illegal" load. However, their mistake was that instead of getting rid of it totally, they just hid it, possibly to reward their athlete after the end of the Games and celebrate with him a potential victory. But they reckoned without the host, or, rather, without Gönczy...
During the event the Hungarian high jumper literally did not know what he was doing. Finally he ranked fourth with a performance of 1.75m and when his fellow countrymen came near him, they realised what had happened, since Gönczy smelled alcohol. On the eve of the game he had discovered the hiding place and consumed all the bottles of wine that had remained.

In the 1906 Olympics Gönczy obtained a silver medal in high jump (and a 5th place in the standing high jump). What was really great was the photo accompanying the article on Gönczy,

where he is jumping turning his back to the bar. In his report on the 1906 Olympic Games, J. Sullivan writes: 

The Greek and the Hungarian who figured in the high jump, jumped purely with strength with no science and did remarkably well. One of the contestants who cleared 1.75 took off at least 10 feet or more from the bar, and who in making his qualifying jump slipped at least eighteen inches, having no spikes in his shoes. Such jumping is simply remarkable under such conditions. It only goes to show what these foreigners will do when they take up scientific jumping.

The contestant who cleared 1.75 m was none other than Gönczy.

The article on Hungarian heroes gives a short description, of Gönczy's technique, calling it the "hungarian" style. It is interesting to give verbatim the translation which I find most intelligible:

He jumped like this: he ran in front of him perpendicularly, kicked in from afar, then crossed over the ledge with his foot forward and his back heavily arched.

Combining this with every other available online translation I can summarise Gönczy's style as follows:

His run-up was perpendicular to the pit. Taking one strong last step, he passed the bar on his back. 

If this is not Fosbury flop I don't know what it is. 

This explains also why Gönczy did not have great success in standing high jump. The Fosbury style is based on speed. So, while Gönczy's style was OK in the "normal" high jump, it did disservice him in the standing one. 

In case you were wondering, the IOC does not count the 1906 silver medal of Gönczy as an olympic one. 

RIP P.J. Vazel blog

If you read this blog you'll have certainly noticed that I do appreciate the writings of P.J. Vazel (although I do disagree with him on the question of hyperandrogenic women and in particular C. Semenya).

P.J. Vazel was blogging for quite some time and I was regularly following his blog, which was for me a source of inspiration. And then, after the Rio Olympics, the blog went into radio silence. His last post was on August 19, on the olympic 50 km race-walking held under a scorching sun. On January 2018 I did rejoice as another article was posted in the blog. I did even announce this in my post "Vazel is back". Alas, I was overly optimistic. Nothing did appear in the wake of that article and when I checked for the blog (as I was doing from time to time) I was greeted by the following page:

Vazel's blog was definitely dead. Fortunately I had saved the pdfs of all the articles I was interested in. But how about the ones I haven't saved? Well, the Wayback Machine comes to rescue in this case. Don't forget that all the web is archived. So, if you wish to find an article of Vazel, say, the one on hyperandrogenic women, which has disappeared from the blog, well, here it is.

P.J. Vazel is, of course, always active. His page on twitter is worth following. Still, I will miss his blog posts and the great technical articles he has produced over the years.

The Olympic medals (where we talk about medals indeed)

The Olympic Games revival took place in Athens in 1896. The plan of de Coubertin was to hold the first modern Olympics in Paris but the presence, and the speech, of Vikelas at the 1894 meeting of the Union of French Societies of Athletic Sports thwarted his plans. 

Curiously (in view of the ancient greek tradition) the organisers in Athens decided to reward not only the winner but also the runner-up. The winner received a silver medal and an olive brach while the second received a copper medal and a laurel branch. 

The medal exhibited in the Athens, Fokianos, museum is the commemorative one, and thus has a different design from the medals of the winners.

In some cases additional prizes were bestowed to the athletes, the most famous among them being the silver cup of S. Louis who won the first marathon race. The idea of a race from Marathon to Athens was that of the french philologist M. Bréal who offered also a special cup for the marathon winner. 

The Paris, 1900, Olympics were a total fiasco. Spread out over 6 months they were part of the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) which smothered them. There was not even an official opening ceremony. Many athletes, even among the winners, did not know that they were competing in the Olympic Games. The Paris Games were a hodgepodge of events among which one finds automobile racing, live pigeon shooting or ballooning. Some women did participate in the games (that's great) but professionals were also allowed to compete, in fencing, receiving a monetary (!) prize (that's not so great given the hypocritical standards of the time). There are also some unknown olympic champions, as in some rowing events the coxswains were local boys, the names of which were never recorded. 

There were no gold medals in the Paris games. The winner obtained a silver medal and the runner-up a bronze one. In fact, most of the winners did not receive medals. Instead they were given cups or trophies. Quite expectedly, there is no mention of the Olympics on the medals: the medals were those of the World Fair. In that sense there are no commemorative medals from the Paris Games: the ones we consider today as the olympic medals are the commemorative ones.

At moments I phantasise about what would have happened if the Paris Games had not been preceded by the Athens ones. It is my belief that as the Paris organisation had totally escaped the control of de Coubertin and the Games were more of an entertainment added to the World Fair, the Olympic idea would have died then and there. In fact even thus it was moribund and the next Olympics almost brought upon its demise.

The 1904 St. Louis Games were again combined with a World's Fair. (The Games were initially awarded to Chicago but St. Louis forced de Coubertin to rescind this decision).  Again, the Games were spread over 5 months and again the Games were a side-show of the World's Fair, overshadowed by other events. The pinnacle of shame were the "Anthropology Days". According to the Wikipedia,

Critics have argued that the Olympics have engaged in or caused: erroneous anthropological and colonial knowledge production; erasure; commodification and appropriation of indigenous ceremonies and symbolism; theft and inappropriate display of indigenous objects; further encroachment on and support of the theft of indigenous lands; and neglect or intensification of poor social conditions for indigenous peoples. 

And it all started with the Anthropology Days. Indigenous people from all over the world were displayed in anthropological exhibits that showed them in their natural habitats, in a kind of human zoo. The idea was to show that the white, Anglo-American was at the top of the racial hierarchy in brains and brawn. The European-style athletics competitions for the "savages" were a disaster and the “savage-friendly” exhibitions did not fare much better. 

Going back to the medals, the 1904 Games brought two innovations. First, there were medals for the first three of each event, in the metals known today, gold, silver and bronze And when we say "gold" we mean gold: it did remain such for the Olympiads of 1908 and 1912. (But not in the 1906 Olympics where the gold medal was gilt silver, just like from 1920 onwards). Second, the medals came with a ribbon and could be pinned on the breast of the winner (as in the case of military decorations).

We are not going to retrace here the history of the Olympic Games. Suffices it to say that what saved the Olympics after 1900 and 1904 were the intercalatory 1906 Olympics in Athens. The design of the 1896 medals was used anew but now a gold medal did exist.

Then came the Olympics of London and Stockholm, and the one thing that can be said about englishmen and scandinavians is that they are experts in sports. With these two organisations the Olympic Games were definitely out of the woods. There is no point in presenting the design of all the medals. The interested reader can find all the details in the website of the Olympic Museum. They have all the details of all the olympic and the commemorative medals from 1896 to 2016 (and most probably the 2020 ones will soon be added to the collection). In fact they have photos of the diplomas, badges, posters as well as pdfs of the official reports (up to 2008, where, alas, they ceased to exist!).

The obverse of the olympic medals was standardised starting from 1928. The design was that of G. Cassioli, who, being italian, decided to depict the goddess Nike (Victory) with crown and palm, next the wall of the Coliseum (!). This presence of a roman-inspired element (and in particular of a site known for gladiator games) was a pure heresy but it was curiously (?) accepted by the IOC. The reverse of the medal featured a crowd carrying a triumphant athlete on their shoulders. 

Of course that was the "canonical" design but every organising country had a sculptor produce a version of the medal, while respecting Cassioli's design. Still, deviations started to crop up. The most notable are the 1956 equestrian games. Australia had at the time a six-month quarantine on horses and the authorities were not willing to relax it for the Olympics. (I do not think any country could bid for the Olympics today under such conditions). So the equestrian games were held in Sweden and the design of the medals had nothing to do with Cassioli's. 

In the 1960 Rome Games the organisers introduced an innovation: the medal was encircled by a bronze band composed of laurel leaves allowing it to be placed around the neck of the athlete. While the italian bronze design did not survive beyond the 1960 Olympics, the idea  of placing around the neck was adopted and since that time all medals come with a ribbon. 

A first departure from Cassioli's design was at the 1972, Munich, Games, where the reverse  of the medal represented Castor and Pollux in Bauhaus style. Since that time the host city can choose the design of the reverse of the olympic medal and, while all medals are from metal, China, for the 2008, Beijing, Olympics, presented a design which included a ring of jade.  

The one major departure from Cassioli's design was that of the 1992, Barcelona, Olympics, where the Coliseum was totally absent and the greek element was stressed by the presence of a meander in the background. 

In 1996 the design went back to the traditional one but when it came to the 2000, Sydney, Games people started realising that the roman Coliseum had nothing to do with the Olympics. At long last, in 2004, for the Athens Olympics, an error that persisted for 76 years was corrected. The new obverse represents the Nike of Paeonios with a branch of palm in her right hand, in front of the Panathenaicon Stadium with the Acropolis hill with the Parthenon in the background. 

While the affair of the medal was settled, my compatriots made what I consider a major blunder. They decided to reward all three medal winners with a "kotinos", an olive wreath.  So, what, in the ancient times, was something exclusive, a winner-only emblem, became, thanks to the petty-bourgeois tendencies of modern Greeks, an almost commonplace thing. And in any case it decorated the heads of a slew of doppers. Gatlin is the leading figure (and he got to keep his wreath), followed by all the winners of the "heavy" throws in field events. We should have dispensed with this folkloric element, and do as in the 1896 Olympics i.e. reward the winner with a branch of olive (and perhaps a branch of laurel for the two other medalists).

In my previous post I explained that I like the copper colour of the bronze medal. This does not mean that a bronze-coloured medal is not aesthetically pleasing, on the contrary. The Athens commemorative medal is a case in point: the medal is really very nice. Simply, personally, I prefer the "bronze" medal to be of copper colour.

The medals for the 2020, Tokyo, Olympics were recently presented and, to my eyes, the design is better than the one of 2004. Somehow I find the presentation more airy than that of Athens. It has probably to do with the design of the upper tier of the stadium but, in any case, the Tokyo medals are an absolute success.