1924 Summer Olympics

Highlights

• The opening ceremony and several sporting events took place in the Olympic Stadium of Colombes, which had a capacity of 45,000 in 1924.
• This VIII Olympiad was the last one organised under the presidency of Pierre de Coubertin.
• The "Flying Finns" dominated the long distance running, while the British and Americans dominated the shorter events. Paavo Nurmi won the 1500 m and 5,000 m and the cross country run. Ville Ritola won the 10,000 m and the 3,000 m steeplechase, while finishing second to Nurmi on the 5,000 m and cross country. Albin Stenroos won the marathon, while the Finnish team was victorious in the 3,000 m and cross country team events.
• The British runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell won the 100 m and the 400 m events, respectively. Liddell refused to compete in the 100-meter dash because it was held on a Sunday and he was an observant Christian. Their stories were depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire. In addition, Douglas Lowe won the 800-meter competition.
• The marathon distance was fixed at, from the distance run at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London.
• The 1924 Olympics were the first to use the standard 50 m pool with marked lanes.
• Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller won three gold medals in swimming and one bronze in water polo.
• Harold Osborn won gold medals and set Olympic records in both the high jump and the decathlon at the 1924 Olympics. His 6' 6" high jump remained the Olympic record for 12 years, while his decathlon score of 7,710.775 points also set a world record and resulted in worldwide press coverage calling him the "world’s greatest athlete".
• Fencer Roger Ducret of France won five medals, of which three were gold.
• In gymnastics, 24 men scored a perfect 10. Twenty-three of them scored it in the now-discontinued event of rope climbing. Albert Seguin scored a 10 here and also a perfect 10 on side vault.
• Unexpectedly, the national team of Uruguay won the gold medal in football.
• The Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius was used for the first time at the Olympics. It had been used before by the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques, a French sporting federation whose founding members included Pierre de Coubertin. De Coubertin took the motto from his friend Henri Didon, a Dominican priest who had coined during a speech before a Paris youth gathering of 1891.
• Ireland was given formal recognition as an independent nation in the Olympic Movement in Paris in 1924, and it was at these games that Ireland made its first appearance in an Olympic Games as an independent nation.
• Originally called Semaine des Sports d'Hiver and held in association with the 1924 Summer Olympics, the sports competitions held in Chamonix between 25 January and 5 February 1924 were later designated by the International Olympic Committee as the I Olympic Winter Games.
• These were the first Games to feature an Olympic Village.
• The Art competitions at the 1924 Summer Olympics were the first time that the Olympic Art competitions were contested seriously, with 193 entries in five categories. A total of 14 medals were awarded, though none were given in the music category.

  Sports

Demonstration sports

• Venues

Participating nations

• China, also took part in the Opening Ceremony, but its four athletes withdrew from competition.

  Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees

Medal count

• Pierre de Coubertin—founder of the IOC & father of the modern Olympics movement—personally awarded 21 Gold medals to members of the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition including 12 Britons, 7 Indians, 1 Australian and 1 Nepalese.

  Legacy

Last surviving competitor