Olympics -- Sweden and the Games 2

The early revivals differed from the modern Olympics in that they were on a national rather than international level. However, the first Games at which all the continents were represented were not those in Athens in 1896, but in Stockholm in 1912. There were a number of other ‘firsts’:
   * the use of photo-finish equipment
   * electronic timing (as a back-up for the stopwatch)
   * swimming events for women
   * the modern pentathlon (introduced by Coubertin)
   * an official poster

Known as the ‘Sunshine Games’ because of the fine weather, they were also acknowledged to be the best organized to date and served as a model for later Olympics. There were nevertheless political and other controversies that too, were to recur.
   * The Russians were dissatisfied about a separate team being allowed to take part from Finland, then a Grand Duchy of Imperial Russia. (When the Finns beat the Russians at football, the Russian flag was raised — with a placard saying the Finns had won!)
   * The Austrians were unhappy about a separate team competing from Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
   * The star athlete of the Games, Jim Thorpe, was stripped of his medals when it became known he had played minor league baseball in North Carolina for a small sum of money. It was not until long after his death that he was officially reinstated.
   * The poster was not accepted by some countries. In China, the Postmaster General banned it as ‘offensive to Chinese ideas of decency’ and when it was displayed at a railway station in The Netherlands, it was confiscated as being ‘in the highest degree immoral’.

More to come...