by H. G. Nelson
To raise money for the trip the swimmers and their supporters organised a lively campaign of fundraising. Bunnings-style barbecues, cake stalls, lucky envelopes, trivia nights, jazz concerts, lamington drives and can collections out the front of schools and town halls – all helped to pay their way.
The battle to get there and their heroic efforts in the Stockholm pool cemented a strong relationship between the swimming team and the Australian public.
The Stockholm Olympic pool was a fenced-off 100-metre section of the harbour. One hundred and twenty competitors from seventeen countries turned up to take the icy plunge for the precious metal. There were nine events, just two for women, the 100 metres and the four-by-100-metre relay.
At this point in the historic national timeline, Australia was a decade old. We were on the world stage – and winning. But 1912 was one of those years when the team made up the numbers by including New Zealanders. The AUS/NZ combined team came away from the Scandinavian Games with six medals: two gold, two silver and two bronze.
Our number one, Fanny Durack, was a remarkable swimmer. She won the 100-metre freestyle in Stockholm, and from that year until 1920 Fanny held the official world record for the glamour event. During that stretch of dominance, she also held records for the 200-metre free, the 220-yards free, the 500-metre free and the mile freestyle. That is some record.
The 1912 organising committee produced a very racy medal to be dished out to winners by the era’s equivalents of Juan Antonio Samaranch and Jacques Rogge. The gold featured two very fit, nearly nude Nordic women, wearing nothing but see-through gauze, holding a laurel wreath above the victor, a bloke who is looking very casual indeed. The victor is not nearly nude; he is totally nude, as in the days of ancient Greece.
The victor is not nearly nude; he is totally nude, as in the days of ancient Greece.
After the sun set on Stockholm there was a pause in Olympic sport for World War One. In ancient times all hostilities ceased while the Games were held, but the chaos of the World War delayed the next summer Games, due in 1916. The next time the youth of the world gathered was in May 1920 in Antwerp.
Europe was still devastated when the athletes arrived. It was a time of chaos. The war created new nations. Some of these nations were banned from Olympic competition. Hungary, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were blamed for starting the war. They were Axis powers – the enemy – and were told to ride the pine and sit 1920 out. Germany had to stay on the splinters until 1928.
Then as the guns fell silent, the Spanish flu, H1N1, exploded around the world. Estimates suggest it killed fifty million people. The circumstances were not unlike the complications created by COVID-19 for international sporting in 2020, in particular the Olympic Games in Tokyo that were postponed until 2021.
In the 1912 circumstances of chaos and plague, it was an enormous challenge to get to the Games, but thirteen Australians made it. Twelve men and one woman made the trip by slow boat and represented the young nation in four sports.
Albert I, King of the Belgians, declared the Games open. It was an impressive sporting competition, with 156 events in twenty-two sports. New additions to Olympic housekeeping included the Olympic oath and Olympic flag. The medal was another racy confection, again harking back to the ancient Games, featuring laurels, floating wreaths, nudity and fit athletic types soaring heroically into the sky.
An unusual feature of these summer Games was their inclusion of a week of winter sports. The programming committee had a brain explosion and collapsed winter and summer in the mind and on the track. They soon realised that this was a big mistake, and by 1924, the Winter Olympics were on their own, having a wild time in the winter wonderland of Chamonix.
The Antwerp winter card of competition had the usual line-up of speed events. Figure skating and ice hockey were included for the first time. The teams went round for gold in the Palais de Glace where there was a good depth of ice all year round.
Alfred Swahn, a seventy-two-year-old Swedish shooter, provided a genuine highlight when he finished second in the 100-metre running deer double shot. This bang-off involved shooters taking aim at moving targets 100 metres away. Since the Paris pigeon shooting debacle no animals were involved.
Alf, the Swedish number one, turned up for an Olympic shoot in 1908, 1912, 1920 and 1924. His swag of loot included nine medals: three gold, three silver and, you guessed it, three bronze. He was a success in the team running deer single shot, solo running deer single, running deer double and clay pigeons. Big Alfie should not be confused with his son Oscar, who was as good as the old man but had none of his elusive trigger-pulling, crowd-pleasing charisma.
The United States swimming champion, Duke Kahanamoku, returned for another dip and retained the 100-metre gold he had won in Stockholm before the war. The US team had a golden Games, their winning medal tally aided by a clean sweep in the pool. From the Australian perspective, forehead curtains have to be drawn over our Antwerp Games efforts. Our team came back with zip, nada, bugger-all. This short summary allows us to swerve on to better results. The tide was out in Antwerp but came rushing back in later years.
The Duke had time between his 100-metre gold successes to introduce surfing to Australia. On 9 January 1915 he paddled out to walk the plank and hang five at Freshwater Beach in Sydney. Nothing was quite the same ever again surfside around Australia.
Sadly Australia’s 100-metre gold medallist and original superfish, Fanny Durack, was unable to take her place on the blocks when the field assembled for the 100-metres heats in Antwerp. Before these Games, she was struck down by appendicitis and had to have an emergency operation. She was getting back on her feet and back in the pool when she was clobbered by typhoid fever and pneumonia.
Our diver, Lily Beaurepaire, Frank’s sister, turned out in the ten-metre platform. It was our debut in the event. Lily just missed the finals. Walker and flag bearer George Parker came second in the 3000-metre walk; back in the pool our four-by-200 relay team of Beaurepaire, Hay, Herald and Stedman came second, and Frank B backed up in the 1500 metres, plugging home for bronze.
In 1924 the Olympics were back Seine-side in Paris. Thirty-four Australian athletes made the trip. Australia debuted in rowing. Our team of ten rowers included the legendary rowing eight, the Mighty Murray Cods. On the bus home, when the medals were tallied, the team had three gold, one silver and two bronze, equalling the haul from Stockholm in 1912.
This time in Paris our athletes struck gold with Nic Winter in the triple jump, Dick Eve brought home the golden prize in diving and in swimming, and the new kid on the blocks, ‘Boy’ Charlton, came first in the 1500 metres. With Boy and Frank Beaurepaire anchoring the squad, we scored silver in the four-by-200-metre relay. Charlton plugged home for third in the 400 free and Frank was third in the 1500. It was a great Games, with Australia finishing the medal tally in eleventh place.
The year 1924 was a time of great change. As indicated earlier, the Games were split into summer and winter Games. The Olympic flame, such a staple of the modern era, was lit for the duration in the cauldron of courage. Athletes competed with the Olympic motto ‘faster, higher, stronger’ tattooed on their foreheads for the first time. Not sure what they were doing before these instructions from the IOC that they had to get out there, put in and be quick.
In 1928 the big show put up the tent in Amsterdam. Fourteen men and four women made the Australian team. They ran out in six sports and returned with one gold, two silver and one bronze medal. These four gongs in the Cheese and Tulip Town Olympics placed Australia nineteenth in the overall competition.
Bobby Pearce won gold in the men’s single sculls. Boy Charlton was back and came second in the 400 free and 1500 free. Dunc Gray scored a bronze on the Speedwell in the men’s track cycling time trial.
It was an awkward time for Australia. The joint was running on the hurly burly of those twin economic prongs of boom and bust. The nation was at the bottom of a bust. Canberra could only afford to s
end ten athletes: the cost was 73 pounds and 57 pence per athlete, or approximately $111,857.12 in today’s money. Eight athletes were so keen to be part of the big show that they paid their own way to get there.
The 1932 Games were held in the Great Depression in Los Angeles. There was not a lot of spare change for anything, let alone sport. Many countries simply did not have the cash in the kick to send a squad of starters.
There were several firsts at these Olympics. An Olympic village, built for the first time, was home to 1332 men and 126 women. And the three-step podium became part of the medal ceremony furniture. The low point of any Games, the Olympic mascot, appeared for the first time. The L.A. organising committee turned up with a Scottish terrier named Smoky. The sporting world groaned, and from then on the mascot moan became a regular part of the Olympic cultural programme in the weeks leading up to the first day of competition.
Nine men and four women made the trip of a lifetime to L.A. On the medal front Dunc Gray won Australia’s first cycling gold. In a brilliant ride he clocked one minute thirteen seconds in the 1000-metre time trial. Bobby Pearce was back and won gold again in the single sculls. Clare Dennis picked up gold in the 200-metre breaststroke and Bonnie Mealing silver in the 100-metre backstroke. Eddie Scarf won bronze in the men’s wrestling freestyle, light heavyweight. It was a good Games for Australia.
An art competition took place in conjunction with the sporting show. Medals were given in five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. Not sure how the Australian tilt went. James Quinn (one of Australia’s great war artists) picked up the camel-hair brush, knocked the top off the Winsor & Newton tubes and represented Australia in the mixed painting category. There was no pigeon shooting on the cultural agenda.
Art of the Olympics
Letting the youth of the world know when and where to gather for the Games was not easy.
From Athens 1896 until Sydney 2000 the media coverage and access to the Games was relatively limited. There was radio and television, not much cinema and very little advertising apart from the humble poster. In the early decades, language barriers and distance slowed communication. There was no multi-platform, in-your-face-and-everywhere social media that is such a part of the media landscape today.
The 1896 Games poster did not inspire: it featured an athlete kitted out in an odd ensemble, part national dress, part Lululemon exercise apparel, wreath in hand, standing around in the rubble of ancient Greece. But it was not long before Olympic posters began giving the youth something to think about.
The 1908 Paris poster bellowed, ‘Saddle up or miss out!’ It featured a suitably attired high jump champion using a revolutionary jumping technique developed by the altitude-seeking medico, Otto ‘The Doc’ Peltzer.
The Doc’s high jump modus operandi was not without enormous personal risk for those going for gold. It required great commitment. The Doc trained high jumping athletes to run flat out backwards at the bar, plant the feet, take off and elevate into the sky, bum on.
The trick was to see clearing the obstacle in the mind’s eye before the take-off, to visualise the whole body clearing the bar before touching down buttocks first in the sand pit on the far side. This internal seeing-is-believing was at the heart of the Peltzer technique.
The 1908 poster was an exception in that it focused on an Olympic gold medal sport. The high jump was the glamour event. Almost all the posters for the first dozen games of the modern era featured nearly nude blokes straining for glory. The laurel wreath of success dangled just out of the athletes’ reach. The finest examples of the genre were run up for Stockholm in 1912 and Antwerp in 1920.
The 1912 poster featured a nude portrait of likeable Swedish team captain Sven Henriksen with the wedding tackle securely strapped to his left thigh by two strands of orange ribbon. No one is now sure of the competition Sven dropped the shorts for, but he has his eyes on Swedish gold as he twirls a weapon of war above his bonce.
Olle Hjortzberg, the well-respected ‘flower and vase’ man, had been approached by the committee to step outside his comfort zone and have a go at a Games poster. His riding instructions were to produce an image that caught the eye and let people know the Stockholm Olympics were on and everyone would be mad if they missed this fortnight of fabulous fun. Olle did not disappoint. He returned after three weeks alone in the studio with a very suggestive image that had the committee standing and saluting. This will be a must-see event, was his artistic message. Get your tickets early!
Eight years later, the mayor of the athletes’ village, Soren Lassgard, posed for the award-winning artist Hallvard Holmen. Super-fit Soren is depicted nearly nude winding up for a fling of the discus in the direction of Antwerp Cathedral. Not sure why the cathedral should cop it, but that was Hallvard’s vision. Mercifully, as the big bloke is about to let fly, a spectator’s scarf has blown out of the crowd and given Soren’s bed flute area and thighs a modicum of decency.
The early years were the salad days of Olympic lewd. In later decades the village, where the athletes camped during the fortnight of competition, was the home of the pants-around-the-ankles action. It became the centre of international romance and lust.
Times change and as the years tick over artistic and sporting sensibilities change as well. There were no-nearly nudes by the time the Games lob in Melbourne in 1956. By then, poster art had become much more abstract, echoing cultural changes in the art caper worldwide.
The eleventh Games of the modern era survived Hitler’s Germany in 1936. The Berlin Olympics was the first to be televised and the radio coverage reached forty-one countries. These media innovations increased the profile and accessibility of the Games. Suddenly almost everyone, everywhere could see or hear the action.
One hundred and twenty-nine events were scheduled in the Games of the XI Olympiad. Among the twenty-five sports, basketball, canoeing and handball were added to the ranks.
The torch relay, now a big part of any Games build-up, took place for the first time. From Olympia, the torch was carried by hand to the main stadium in Berlin.
Thirty-two fit Australians braved the politics of Germany on the eve of World War Two and participated in twenty-six events in seven sports. Jack Metcalfe won our only medal, a bronze in the triple jump.
The Australian squad boasted three boxers: a fly, a welter and a light heavy. On the bikes, Tasman ‘Tassie’ Johnson was in the road race, and the time trial specialist Dunc Gray was back in the sprint, but they made the long trip without success. Off the diving board, Ron Masters took the plunge from the three-metre springboard and ten-metre platform but failed to impress the picky judging panel who did not know quality if it clobbered them in the face. In rowing, Australians lined up in three events – the single and double sculls and the eights – but after their heats there was nowhere for our rowers to go except home empty-handed.
It was slim pickings in the pool, too. Bill Kendall in the 100 freestyle and Percy Oliver in the 100 backstroke struggled, while Evelyn Lacey in the 100 and 400 freestyle, Kitty McKay in the 100 freestyle and Pat Norton in the 100 backstroke all failed to advance.
It was a similar story in the wrestling. Our big three, Dick Garrard lightweight, John O’Hara welterweight and Eddie Scarf light heavyweight, made the trip to Berlin. It was a hot competition and none of our grapplers advanced into the rounds where medals were on offer.
For obvious reasons, the XI Olympiad are the forgotten Games of our Olympic involvement.
A look back over these early decades of the modern Olympics illuminates the evolution of the international school sports carnival. It is an incredible organisational feat. Look where the five-ringed circus lobbed in 2016. In Rio the twenty-eight sports contested featured forty-one separate disciplines, which generated 812 gold medals. It had become a Very Big Thing. The ‘faster, higher, stronger’ fortnight added five additional sports for Tokyo. Will the committee ever decide it is big enough?
A look back over these early decades
of the modern Olympics illuminates the evolution of the international school sports carnival. It is an incredible organisational feat.
War, what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing apart from the Olympics. So many of the sports at the ‘peaceful’ Games have an origin in warfare.
The Baron’s modern Games additions had a distinctly military flavour. Shot-put is based on the cannon ball. There were no cannons in ancient times. The cannon concept was put together by the Chinese in the twelfth century. The big ball blast was adopted as a weapon of choice in the thirteenth century. Early balls were rounded stone, but by the seventeenth century they were cast from iron.
Artillery troops on the front line needed to be quick on their feet between lighting the blue paper and blowing away the enemy. The highly trained grunts manning the cannon needed a steady supply of big round ammo. Hurling the cannon balls from the horse-drawn cart up to the gun emplacement became a specialised skill.
The delivery of the deadly iron orb by the heave routine has given the world one of the great Olympic sports. Is there anything more arousing than seeing big muscular people in national-coloured leisure wear enter the circle of chuck, take a deep breath, skip across the ring and put everything from the taut thighs and bulging buttocks up through the torso and into a gold medal–winning heave of the shot?
The shot-put was won in 1896 by Robert Garret, who tipped out the Golden Greek, Miltiadis Gouskos, with a throw of 11.22 metres. It was an Olympic record. Today’s top heavers, both men and women, are throwing twice that distance. But records are only there to be broken. Women began throwing for gold in 1948. Imagine the stars of the lost years between 1896 and 1948 when women could not step into the ring and enjoy the camaraderie and competition that blokes had enjoyed for decades.
The shot-put is a sport that talks to all Australians once every four years. On that special afternoon of intense exertion and electrifying competition, Australians are the world experts on all facets of the big fling.
