When the first modern Olympics were organised in Athens in 1896, the organisers proposed to include a pentathlon identical to the one held during the ancient Olympics. De Coubertin vetoed it in order to support the idea of the Marathon which was proposed by his friend Michel Bréal. (And then, when it came to the 1908 London Olympics, de Coubertin accepted to pervert the race, assenting to the proposal of the organisers to add two more kilometres to the initial 40 km Marathon-Athens distance, so as to have the race start in front of the Windsor Palace).
I already wrote about the 1906 Olympic pentathlon. Ignoring the rules of the ancient pentathlon the organisers staged a competition where it was possible to cheat (and cheating did indeed take place). Also, to be frank, although the ancient pentathlon was a perfect event for the ancient times, it is ill suited for modern athletics: wrestling is a totally different discipline and mixing two different skills reminds one of the other de Coubertin monstrosity, the "modern" pentathlon.
There were no combined events in 1908. Then came the 1912 Games in Sweden. The organisers decided to include not one but two combined events, a pentathlon and a decathlon. The latter was an evolution of the all-around event done properly, and not reminding the festival-like character of the all-round. (I may be unfair to the all around event. Most probably my enmity comes from the fact that A. Brundage was an all-arounder, who moreover, prided himself to be a heel-and-toe, i.e. race-walk, specialist). Anyhow, the Swedes chose properly the decathlon events and established tables for the scoring of the performances. When it came to the pentathlon though they made one good and one bad decision. The good one was to replace wrestling by a 1500 m race. Thus the pentathlon became a pure athletics event. The bad decision was to use the same system used in Athens, in 1906, for the classification, namely points attributed according to the rank. While in 1912 the system did not result in an unfair classification, that was not the case for 1924 as we shall see below.
The 1912 were marked by the presence of "the greatest athlete in the world" according to the praise by king Gustav V of Sweden during the award ceremony (although the story may be apocryphal), Jim Thorpe. Even today, when it is asked who is the best decathlete the name of Thorpe immediately pops to mind.
What he did in Stockholm was unprecedented. In the pentathlon he won four out of the five events (long jump, 200 m, discus throw, 1500 m) and placed third in the javelin (he had not thrown a javelin until two months before the Games). Had an ancient pentathlon been organised he would have won it after the first four events in the rare distinction of an "akoniti" win (i.e. without having to go into wrestling).
H. Wieslander, who was considered the main opponent of Thorpe, had a catastrophic discus performance and lost all hopes for a medal (but he would have been 4th had the classification been based on table points). F. Bie won the silver medal. The classification lists A. Brundage as 6th. Brundage himself has been bragging all life long that he finished 6th at the pentathlon. Nothing is further from the truth. Brundage dropped out after the fourth event: although he shared the third place with Lukeman at this point, he knew he had no hope for a medal. Despite his no-show the organisers gave him 7 points, corresponding to the last place, in total disrespect (or was it pure ignorance?) of the rules. In fact Brundage would repeat this "courageous" decision in the decathlon where he dropped out after the 8th event.
Speaking about the decathlon, there also Thorpe was masterful. He won four out of the 10 events, being among the first four in every event. His winning margin over Wieslander was of 700 points and his 8412 points a new world record (that's 6649 points with the current table, a quite respectable performance).
If you are interested in athletics (if not, one can wonder why you are reading the blog) you most probably know the sad story of J. Thorpe being stripped of his gold medals. A few months after the Olympics he was accused of professionalism and at that time the amateurism rules were mindlessly strict. His amateur status was withdrawn and the IOC decided to annul his Stockholm results. He had to return his olympic medals. (Bie and Wieslander, being gentlemen, refused the gold medals. In fact Wieslander's medal was donated to the museum of the Swedish School of Sport from where it was stolen and never recovered). In this case the IOC acted in blatant violation of their own rules, which stipulate that "protests had to be made within 30 days from the closing ceremonies of the games". Thorpe's claims fell on deaf ears (in particular those of the almighty A. Brundage) and he was reinstated only posthumously, in 1983.
The pentathlon event survived during two more Olympics, those of Antwerp in 1920 and of Paris in 1924. The same system of classification based on places was applied to both competitions. R. Legendre was the main victim of this stupid system. In 1920 he finished in the third place together with H. Lahtinen but the rules stipulated that the ex-aequo should be lifted based on the table points. So, Legendre ended up being fourth, Lahtinen winning the bronze medal. In fact Legendre paid the price of a catastrophic long jump where he could finish not better than 5th. He also finished 5th in the 1500 m for a mere 0.2 s where a 4th place would have given him the bronze medal. He obtained a medal of that colour in 1924 but that was as anticlimactic as it can be.
Legendre was a good long jumper but he did not manage to qualify in the US trials. So he could only participate in the pentathlon. And there he did something unique: he broke the world record in long jump while competing in the pentathlon. Had the scoring table been used for the pentathlon classification Legendre would have won the event with more than a 100 points over Lehtonen. With the antiquated place system he got just one point less than the second contestant (who was at more than 80 cm behind him). In the end he had to console himself with taking just a bronze medal home.
That was the last time the pentathlon was part of the Track and Field Olympic competition. I do not regret its absence. (Now if only the "modern" pentathlon could also disappear from the olympic program).
I already wrote about the 1906 Olympic pentathlon. Ignoring the rules of the ancient pentathlon the organisers staged a competition where it was possible to cheat (and cheating did indeed take place). Also, to be frank, although the ancient pentathlon was a perfect event for the ancient times, it is ill suited for modern athletics: wrestling is a totally different discipline and mixing two different skills reminds one of the other de Coubertin monstrosity, the "modern" pentathlon.
There were no combined events in 1908. Then came the 1912 Games in Sweden. The organisers decided to include not one but two combined events, a pentathlon and a decathlon. The latter was an evolution of the all-around event done properly, and not reminding the festival-like character of the all-round. (I may be unfair to the all around event. Most probably my enmity comes from the fact that A. Brundage was an all-arounder, who moreover, prided himself to be a heel-and-toe, i.e. race-walk, specialist). Anyhow, the Swedes chose properly the decathlon events and established tables for the scoring of the performances. When it came to the pentathlon though they made one good and one bad decision. The good one was to replace wrestling by a 1500 m race. Thus the pentathlon became a pure athletics event. The bad decision was to use the same system used in Athens, in 1906, for the classification, namely points attributed according to the rank. While in 1912 the system did not result in an unfair classification, that was not the case for 1924 as we shall see below.
What he did in Stockholm was unprecedented. In the pentathlon he won four out of the five events (long jump, 200 m, discus throw, 1500 m) and placed third in the javelin (he had not thrown a javelin until two months before the Games). Had an ancient pentathlon been organised he would have won it after the first four events in the rare distinction of an "akoniti" win (i.e. without having to go into wrestling).
If you are interested in athletics (if not, one can wonder why you are reading the blog) you most probably know the sad story of J. Thorpe being stripped of his gold medals. A few months after the Olympics he was accused of professionalism and at that time the amateurism rules were mindlessly strict. His amateur status was withdrawn and the IOC decided to annul his Stockholm results. He had to return his olympic medals. (Bie and Wieslander, being gentlemen, refused the gold medals. In fact Wieslander's medal was donated to the museum of the Swedish School of Sport from where it was stolen and never recovered). In this case the IOC acted in blatant violation of their own rules, which stipulate that "protests had to be made within 30 days from the closing ceremonies of the games". Thorpe's claims fell on deaf ears (in particular those of the almighty A. Brundage) and he was reinstated only posthumously, in 1983.
The pentathlon event survived during two more Olympics, those of Antwerp in 1920 and of Paris in 1924. The same system of classification based on places was applied to both competitions. R. Legendre was the main victim of this stupid system. In 1920 he finished in the third place together with H. Lahtinen but the rules stipulated that the ex-aequo should be lifted based on the table points. So, Legendre ended up being fourth, Lahtinen winning the bronze medal. In fact Legendre paid the price of a catastrophic long jump where he could finish not better than 5th. He also finished 5th in the 1500 m for a mere 0.2 s where a 4th place would have given him the bronze medal. He obtained a medal of that colour in 1924 but that was as anticlimactic as it can be.
That was the last time the pentathlon was part of the Track and Field Olympic competition. I do not regret its absence. (Now if only the "modern" pentathlon could also disappear from the olympic program).
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