The1920 Summer Olympics (French:Jeux olympiques d'été de 1920;Dutch:Olympische Zomerspelen van 1920;German:Olympische Sommerspiele 1920), officially known as theGames of the VII Olympiad (French:Jeux de la VIIe olympiade;Dutch:Spelen van de VIIe Olympiade;German:Spiele der VII. Olympiade) and commonly known asAntwerp 1920 (French:Anvers 1920;Dutch andGerman:Antwerpen 1920), were an internationalmulti-sport event held in 1920 inAntwerp, Belgium.
In March 1912, during the 13th session of the IOC, Belgium's bid to host the 1920 Summer Olympics was made by BaronÉdouard de Laveleye, president of the Belgian Olympic Committee and of theRoyal Belgian Football Association. No fixed host city was proposed at the time.
The1916 Summer Olympics, to have been held in Berlin, capital of theGerman Empire, were cancelled due toWorld War I. When the Olympic Games resumed after the war, Antwerp was awarded the hosting rights to the 1920 Summer Games as a tribute to the Belgian people. Theaftermath of the war and theParis Peace Conference, 1919 affected the Olympic Games not only due to new states being created, but also by sanctions against the nations that lost the war and were blamed for starting it.Hungary,Germany,Austria,Bulgaria, and theOttoman Empire were banned from competing in the Games.Soviet Russia had just emerged from theCivil War and chose not to attend the Games. Germany did not return to Olympic competition until1928 and instead hosted a series of games calledDeutsche Kampfspiele, starting with the Winter edition of 1922 (which predated the first Winter Olympics).
The United States won the most gold and overall medals at the 1920 Summer Games.
The first action of the committee was to send an official letter to the IOC in Paris, confirming Antwerp as the city for the Belgian Olympic bid. With Antwerp confirmed as the Olympic Games host, Belgium began reconstructing the Beerschot Stadium into theOlympisch Stadion.[6] Construction on the new Olympic stadium began in July 1919 and finished in May 1920.[7]
In 1914, a 109-page brochure was created to promote the idea of Antwerp as a host city for the Olympics:Aurons-nous la VIIème Olympiade à Anvers? (Will we have the 7th Olympiad at Antwerp?). It was sent to all IOC members and was used during the6th Olympic Congress in Paris in 1914, where the candidacies of Amsterdam (which would eventually host the1928 Summer Olympics), Antwerp, Budapest, and Rome (which would eventually host the1960 Summer Olympics) were discussed. Despite a slight preference at the time for Budapest, no final choice was made, and the outbreak ofWorld War I soon afterwards prevented any further progress.[8]
In 1915,Lyon made a bid for the 1920 Games, but after some discussion, they agreed to support Antwerp and postpone their bid until 1924 if Antwerp was liberated in time to organize the Games. The support for Belgium by cousin country France, then the leading country of the IOC, also meant that Amsterdam and Budapest (in an enemy state) had no chance for the 1920 games against Antwerp.
New candidacies from American cities did not have that disadvantage, and bids were received fromCleveland,Philadelphia, andAtlanta (which would eventually host the1996 Summer Olympics), while Cuba also submitted a bid forHavana.
However, shortly after the armistice in November 1918, the IOC decided to give Antwerp their first preference, if they were still willing to host the 1920 Games. In March 1919, the Belgian Olympic Committee decided to go ahead with the organization of the Games: on 5 April 1919, at a meeting in Lausanne, Antwerp was officially declared the host city for the games of the VIIth Olympiad.[9]
The 1920 Summer Games organizers had very little time to prepare. The time between the IOC's decision of choosing Antwerp as the host city and the opening ceremony was 1 year, 4 months, and 9 days, making this the shortest time for a host city to plan and organize an Olympic edition.[10]
An executive committee was established on 17 April 1919, with Henri de Baillet-Latour as chairman and Alfred Verdyck, the secretary of the Belgian Union of Football Clubs, as general secretary. Seven commissions were created, to deal with finances, accommodation, press relations, propaganda, schedules, transport, and festivities. Finances and scheduling proved to be the two hardest parts to tackle: the program of events was not published until February 1920, six months before the official start of the Games.[citation needed]
Between 23 and 30 April 1920, an ice hockey tournament marked the early start of the Games. Held in the "Palais de Glace" or Ice Palace in Antwerp, it was the first time that ice hockey was an Olympic sport.[11]
The first stone of the new Olympisch Stadion was laid on 4 July 1919 byJan De Vos, mayor of Antwerp, and inaugurated less than a year later on 23 May 1920 with agymnastics demonstration.[12]
When the Olympic Games began, the stadium was still unfinished with some events being built over fortifications and others using existing locations. The athletes quarters were crowded and athletes slept on folding cots.[13]
The nautical stadium orStade Nautique d'Antwerp was built at the end of theJan Van Rijswijcklaan, using the city ramparts there as a spectator's stand. Other events, like shooting, boxing, and equestrian sports, were held at pre-existing locations in and around Antwerp and as far away asOstend.[14]
The number of spectators was low throughout Antwerp's Summer Olympics, since not many people could afford tickets. In the closing days of the Olympic Games, students were allowed to attend the event for free.[15] After the conclusion of the Olympic Games, Belgium recorded a loss of more than 600 million francs.[16]
The Olympic Games being a symbol of peace and global solidarity shone at Antwerp. These Olympics were the first in which theOlympic Oath was voiced, the first in which doves were released to symbolize peace, and the first in which theOlympic Flag was flown to display the unity of the world's continents through its 5 rings.[17]
The United States won 41 gold, 27 silver, and 27 bronze medals. Sweden, Great Britain, Finland, and Belgium rounded out the five most successful medal-winning nations, with France and Belgium being the nations that fielded the most athletes, with the United States being only the third by that statistic.
The Games also featured a week of winter sports, withfigure skating appearing for the first time since the1908 Olympics, andice hockey making its Olympic debut.
Nedo Nadi won 5 gold medals in the fencing events.
At the age of 72, Sweden's100 metre running deer double-shot event championOscar Swahn, who had participated in the 1908 and 1912 Games, came in second in the team event to become the oldest Olympic medal winner ever.
23-year-oldPaavo Nurmi won the 10,000 m and 8000 mcross country races, took another gold in team cross country, and a silver in the 5000 m run. His contributions forFinland broke a record in track and field with 9 medals.
Duke Kahanamoku retained the 100 m swimming title he won before the war.
Thesailing events were among some of strangest moments in Olympic history:[18]
there were originally 16 events scheduled but there were no entrants for the 9 metre, 1907 rating class nor the 8.5 metre 1919 rating class
the 12-foot dinghy event took place in two different countries. The final two races in the event were independently held in theNetherlands, on its own accord, supposedly because the only two competitors in the event were Dutch.[19]
There were 162 events in 28 disciplines that were part of the Olympic program in 1920.[1] The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.
Seventeen sports venues were used in the 1920 Summer Olympics. This marked the first time that the football tournament was spread throughout the country, which has mostly been the case since.[48]
Photograph of the games at Antwerp, Belgium, 1920.
Participants in the 1920 games, with the nations in blue participating for the first time.Number of athletes
A total of 29 nations participated in the Antwerp Games, only one more than in 1912, asGermany,Austria,Hungary,Bulgaria andTurkey were not invited, having lostWorld War I and sanctioned for starting it. From the newly created European states, onlyEstonia took part, asCzechoslovakia succeededBohemia and theKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes succeededSerbia, with both nations had sent athletes prior toWorld War I (in the case of Bohemia as part of theAustrian Empire).Soviet Russia was busy with thePolish-Soviet War and therefore was unable to form an Olympic team (Poland in turn, had never participated in the games before, only doing so in later editions).Brazil andMonaco competed as nations at the Olympic Games for the first time.New Zealand, which had competed as part of a combined team with Australia in 1908 and 1912, competed on its own for the first time. The games marked the return ofArgentina andIndia to the competitions.[citation needed]
As the local Olympic Organizing Committee went bankrupt during the Antwerp 1920 Games, no official report of the Games was ever produced. The documents of the Games were archived at the Belgium Olympic Committee headquarters in Brussels.[78]
These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1920 Games.[79] These were the first Olympics where the host nation did not win the most medals overall.
.svg)
_(cropped).jpg)
