Olympics -- Sweden and the Games 1

Pierre de Coubertin was by no means the first person to revive the ancient Olympic Games. The idea was born much earlier in the Renaissance period, with its renewed interest in the classical world. Thus the first Cotswold ‘Olimpick Games’ were held in England in the 17th century and there were similar events in other countries well before the first of the modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.

An Olympic Association formed in southern Sweden arranged its Games at Ramlösa (Helsingborg) in 1834, with four series of competitions that included jumping over a horse and climbing a mast, as well as running various distances. They were all held on the same fine summer’s day in July.

The first event was a kind of gymnastics competition, in which there were seven competitors. It was won by a student from the old university city of Lund, who was awarded a gold ring. This was followed by a race in which an apprentice blacksmith finished ahead of nineteen other runners, he being similarly rewarded, while the winner of the wrestling tournament, in which seven men took part, was given a silver jug. Competitors in the final event had to climb a slippery pole some 10m (33 ft) high, with a silver cup going to the first person to bring it down from its perch at the top. As this favoured the first ones to try, lots were drawn to decide the order. However, the hearts of the crowd went not to the winner, but a young boy who later shinned up the soapy pole in great style, and they made a collection for him.

The prime mover behind the Helsingborg Games was a gymnastics and fencing teacher, Gustaf Johan Scharteau. He held them again in 1836 and later turned his attention to Stockholm where a similar event was scheduled for 1843 in the large open area known as Gärdet. Unfortunately, it proved a dismal failure, not because of a lack of public support, but the reverse. It was too popular. Far more people came than the officials expected or could cope with. Tickets had been sold, but there were thousands of gatecrashers and all ended in chaos. Moreover, the winner of the slippery mast-climbing event had only just received his prize when it was snatched from him by one of the spectators, whereupon a new event was added to the schedule, a great chase after the culprit, who turned out to be a 14-year-old boy.

More to come...