Rowing at the Games of the II Olympiad | |
---|---|
Venue | Seine |
Dates | 25–26 August 1900 |
Competitors | 108 from 8 nations |
Rowing at the 1900 Summer Olympics | |
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Single sculls | men |
Coxed pair | men |
Coxed four | men |
Eight | men |
At the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, four events in rowing were contested, marking the introduction of the sport to the Olympic program. [1] At the inaugural 1896 Games, the rowing competition was cancelled due to strong winds. The 1900 regatta was held on the Seine between the Courbevoie Bridge and the Asnières Bridge on 25 and 26 August. [2] The length of the regatta course was 1,750 metres (5,740 ft; 1.09 mi). [3] Two finals were held in the coxed four competition, with both finals being considered Olympic championships. [4] Thus, there were a total of five rowing championships awarded.
A total of 108 rowers from 8 nations competed at the Paris Games:
Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | France (FRA) | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
2 | Germany (GER) | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
3 | Mixed team (ZZX) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
United States (USA) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
5 | Netherlands (NED) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
6 | Belgium (BEL) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
7 | Great Britain (GBR) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Totals (7 entries) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
In the coxed pair event, the names of the coxswains for six of the seven crews entered are not known. Most of these were young French boys weighing about 25 kg, which the French crews employed to their advantage. [9] The winning Dutch crew decided, after losing their heat, that their own coxswain was too heavy, and they recruited a French boy to steer the boat for the finals. The lad, name unknown, is believed likely to be the youngest Olympic gold medalist ever (previously estimated as between 7 and 10 years of age). [10] [11] Some estimate the boy was likely 12 to 14 years old. [9] One researcher has made a case that this unknown cox could have been Giorgi Nikoladze (1888-1931) of Georgia, a future scientist and promulgator of Georgian sport. [12] [13]
At the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, seven swimming events were contested. Only men competed in the swimming competition. There was a total of 76 participants from 12 countries competing. The games are referenced in Yann Martel's 2001 novel Life of Pi. As with the rowing events, swimming took place on the Seine between the Courbevoie Bridge and the Asnières Bridge.
The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Berlin, Germany, from 1 August to 16 August.
Rowing at the Summer Olympics has been part of the competition since its debut in the 1900 Summer Olympics. Rowing was on the program at the 1896 Summer Olympics but was cancelled due to bad weather. Only men were allowed to compete until the women's events were introduced at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal which gave national federations the incentive to support women's events and catalysed growth in women's rowing. Lightweight rowing events were introduced to the games in 1996. Qualifying for the rowing events is under the jurisdiction of the World Rowing Federation. World Rowing predates the modern Olympics and was the first international sport federation to join the modern Olympic movement.
Dimitrios Loundras was a Greek gymnast and naval officer who competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. He was the last surviving participant of these Games.
Belgium competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. It was the first appearance of the European nation. Belgium was represented in France by 78 athletes, all of them male, who competed in 11 disciplines. They comprised 95 entries in 28 events.
Germany competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.
The Netherlands first competed at the Summer Olympic Games at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.
The men's coxed pair was one of the competitions in the Rowing at the 1900 Summer Olympics events in Paris. It was held on 25 August and 26 August 1900. 7 boats, involving 22 rowers from 3 nations, competed. The event was won by a mixed team; Minerva Amsterdam's Dutch crew replaced its coxswain with a local French boy for the final. François Brandt and Roelof Klein were the rowers, with Hermanus Brockmann the cox in the semifinals; the French cox is unknown. Second and third places both went to French boats; Société nautique de la Marne took silver while Rowing Club Castillon earned bronze.
The men's coxed four was one of the competitions in the Rowing at the 1900 Summer Olympics events in Paris. The competition was plagued by controversy involving which boats should advance to the final. In one of the most unusual decisions in Olympic history, two separate finals were held for the event, each of which is still considered an Olympic championship by the International Olympic Committee. The crews of all six boats to compete in the two finals are Olympic medallists.
The men's coxed pair event was a rowing event conducted as part of the 1964 Summer Olympics programme. It was held from 11 to 15 October. There were 16 boats from 16 nations, with each nation limited to a single boat in the event. The event was won by American crew Edward Ferry, Conn Findlay, and coxswain Kent Mitchell. Findlay had been on the United States gold medal crew in 1956 and bronze medal crew in 1960; he was the first man to earn two gold medals in the event, as well as the first man to win three medals of any color in the event. Mitchell had also been on the 1960 crew, and was the seventh man to earn multiple medals in the coxed pair. Jacques Morel, Georges Morel, and cox Jean-Claude Darouy took silver to earn France's first medal in the event since 1952. Herman Rouwé, Erik Hartsuiker, Jan Just Bos earned what was formally the Netherlands' first medal in the event; a pair of Dutch rowers had won the first edition in 1900, but had jettisoned their cox in favor of a local French boy between rounds and thus that medal was a "mixed team" medal.
Marjorie Gestring was a competitive springboard diver from the United States. At the age of 13 years and 268 days, she won the gold medal in 3-meter springboard diving at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, making her at the time the youngest person ever to win an Olympic gold medal. A multi-time national diving champion in the United States, she was given a second Olympic gold medal by the United States Olympic Committee after the 1940 Summer Olympics were called off due to the advent of World War II. Gestring attempted to return to the Olympics at the 1948 Games, but failed to qualify for the US team. She has been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame.
Hermanus Gerardus "Herman" Brockmann was a Dutch coxswain who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics.
François Antoine Brandt was a Dutch rower who competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Brandt was part of the Dutch eight team that won a bronze medal with Hermanus Brockmann as the coxswain. Brockmann also steered the boat of Brandt and Roelof Klein in the coxed pairs semifinal, which they lost to France. The pair realized that the 60 kg weight of Brockmann puts them in disadvantage; they replaced him with a local boy of 33 kg and won the final narrowly beating the French team.
Roelof Klein was a Dutch rower who competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Klein was part of the Dutch eight team that won a bronze medal with Hermanus Brockmann as the coxswain. Brockmann also steered the boat of Klein and François Brandt in the coxed pairs semifinal, which they lost to France. The pair realized that the 60 kg weight of Brockmann puts them in disadvantage; they replaced him with a local boy of 33 kg and won the final narrowly beating the French team.
The Netherlands first sent athletes to the Olympic Games in 1900, and has participated in almost all Games since then with the exception of 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. The Netherlands boycotted the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne as a protest against the Soviet invasion in Hungary just a few weeks before the beginning of the Games.
The men's coxed four event was part of the rowing programme at the 1924 Summer Olympics. The competition, the fourth appearance of the event, was held from 13 to 17 July 1924 on the river Seine. There were 10 boats from 10 nations, with each nation limited to a single boat in the event. The event was won by Switzerland, the nation's second consecutive victory in the event; the two Swiss victories matched Germany for most among nations to that point. France earned its first medal in the event since 1900 with silver. The United States reached the podium for the second straight Games with a bronze medal. Hans Walter, a member of the Swiss crew in 1920 as well as this year, was the first man to win two medals in the event, and the only one to win two golds.
The 1900 European Rowing Championships were rowing championships held in Paris on the Seine in early September. The 1900 regatta was held between the Courbevoie Bridge and the Asnières Bridge, the same venue that had been used for the 1900 Summer Olympics a week earlier. The length of the regatta course was 1,750 metres (5,740 ft). The competition was for men only and they competed in five boat classes.
Olga Guramishvili-Nikoladze was a Georgian biologist and educator. One of the first women to study abroad, she earned a degree in pedagogy and brought advanced teaching methods to Georgia. In 1886, she founded a girls' school, and later a women's gymnasium, in Didi Jikhaishi. At the school, she introduced sericulture to the country and taught her students mechanical knitting and weaving. In her later career, she served as the chair of the school board in Poti from 1894 to 1912. She is remembered for her contributions to education and a street in Tbilisi bears her name.
I want to state that in my humble opinion this young boy might still be one of the youngest gold-medal winners in the Olympic Games ever, but he is certainly not younger than 12 to 14 years old, as can be deducted from the enclosed photograph. ...nothing can be found about the ages from the coxes from the French rowing teams in Paris 1900. I am quite certain that when the age from these boys could be found, they must have been even younger than the one in the Dutch boat; who had already been discarded because of his weight!