Gold, Silver and Green: The Irish Olympic Journey, 1896-1924

CHAPTER TWo THE PARIS GAMES, 1900

CHAPTER TWo THE PARIS GAMES, 1900 he second modern olympic Games were awarded to Paris, despite Greek demands that Athens be their permanent home. There were nearly twice as many countries represented at Paris by comparison with Athens, while the total number of competitors was well over five times the Athens figure, including twentytwo women.1 For all this, the Paris olympic Games of 1900 were the most disorganised and diluted Games ever held, lost in the mists of a five-anda -half-month world exposition. Partly due to this, the Games also had a very low level of Irish involvement, little better than in Athens before that. In this chapter, we will explore that involvement and its impact on Irish identity. We will also look at how 1900 itself marked a sort of watershed in Irish olympics-related sports, involving recognition of a need for international competition that pre-supposed Irish athletics dominance was under serious threat from America, including IrishAmerica . In some respects, it was such developments and the disappointing nature of the 1900 olympics too, which galvanised at least some of the remaining Irish athletics greats to attend future olympic Games when they came around. An Invitation Accepted Although evidence of a national engagement with the olympic movement during or immediately after the 1896 Games is scarce, the prospect of another opportunity for Ireland to display its athletic prowess in Paris was a welcome one in some quarters. The geographical closeness of Paris, the 47 fact that the Games would not be held as early in the year as the Athens ones had been, and the realisation that the olympics were an established entity now, not a once-off novelty, all played a part in awakening Irish interest. one historian reported: ‘The British, Irish, and Scottish amateur athletic associations were the first to enter, followed by several American universities and clubs.’2 Searches at the olympic Studies Centre at Lausanne have failed to confirm this entry through documentation. There are many individual invitations, to olympic dinners and balls for instance, but no list of invited countries or organisations appears to be extant. Although the Cork Examiner was a little ‘previous’ with its report, this Irish decision to send a team was confirmed by the paper on 16 July 1900, citing that: Fourteen nations have sent their chosen representatives. America sending 48 . . . England and Hungary 7 . . . Ireland, Norway and Greece 2 . . . England is represented by Bennett, Rimmer, Robinson, Tysoe, Lee and Eliott; and Ireland by Leahy and o’Connor . . .3 The Irish Amateur Athletic Association, as we saw in the last chapter, received an invitation to attend the inaugural Games in 1896 and there is no doubt that the same happened in 1900, despite the lack of official invitation lists. A letter from Charles Herbert of the AAA, unfortunately not dated, showed him listing likely officials who might participate in an upcoming congress.⁴ Among ten names, nine from the south of England – including W.H. Grenfell, the future Lord Desborough – Herbert listed E.J. Walsh of Rhodaville, Churchtown, Dublin. Walsh, as we saw previously, was the secretary of the IAAA. This letter was undated but contained Herbert’s suggestion that holding the international championships in Paris on Sunday 8 July would not be a good day because it was the day after the AAA championships.⁵ The only year between 1896 and 1906 when 8 July fell on a Sunday was 1900, not to mention the fact that the Paris athletics contests were eventually held on the following Sunday, 15 July, in the main. other national and local papers likewise backed up the notion that the Paris Games were the first for which an actual Irish team was to be entered.⁶ The most authoritative olympic records extant cite the representation of Ireland in athletics, polo and tennis, though enshrined Gold, Silver and Green 48 in the caveat that ‘Two other “nations” could be considered to have been represented in 1900. Algeria and Ireland had athletes competing, but neither country in 1900 was an independent nation.’⁷ In the end, whatever the original invitation or intention, Irish representation in Paris was to be so small that it was subsumed into the British representation in the minds of all those involved – all the contemporary documentation in the Paris 1900 files at the olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne listed the Irish competitors as ‘Grande Bretagne’, although Australian medallists were recognised as...