My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck By Lightning

toanunnery:

Joanna De Tuscan - Detroit native, competitor in the 1936 Olympics

cabbagingcove:

Frederick Winters at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis

From the little I can gather, Frederick Winters was a “strongman” in a carnival for some time, and claimed a silver medal at the 1904 Olympics for “Men’s All-Around Dumbell” - an event intended to determine the overall weightlifting champion, and held over the course of two long days.

Of course, given that there were only three competitors, it wasn’t much of an “All-Around” anything, much less championship, but Winters performed admirably nonetheless. His top lift was 45 kg.

Olympic Multimedia Foundation, 1904; Public Domain

London Olympics, 1908.

Now this would have improved the recent London Olympics considerably.

(Source: glukauf, via theblacklacedandy)

yeoldenews:

Olympic controversy, 1895 edition.

(source: The American University Magazine, 1895.)

Lowering the Bar | Disabled Spectator Arrested for Not Visibly Enjoying Olympic Event

historyoftheisles:

Charlotte Cooper of Ealing became the first woman to be an Olympic champion during the 1900 Paris Olympics. The tennis player, who had already won 3 Wimbledon titles (and would go on to win 2 more) beat Hélène Prévost in straight sets to achieve the title during the first Olympics that women were allowed to play in. During the 1900 games Cooper also won gold in mixed doubles with Reginald Doherty. Cooper played, like many women in a full dress, long sleeves and down to her ankles. She died at the age of 96 in 1966.

Source and Image

Source

(via )

oldworldwandering:

In 1948, London hosted the first Olympics in 12 years, which have become known as the Austerity Games. Athletes were required to bring their own towels and slept in barracks and college dorms. Whale meat was one of a few unrationed foods. Some teams chose bring their own supplies, including the French who sent a trainload of meat and air lifted claret to their athletes. No new facilities were built, but the Games were considered a success overall and turned a small profit on a cost of just GBP730,000.

kateoplis:

6 Lost Olympic Sports: Live Pigeon Shooting

The rules of the game were straightforward: Shoot down as many birds as possible in the allotted time, with two misses resulting in elimination. The event—in which Australia’s Donald MacIntosh [above at the 1900 Paris games] took the bronze—was predictably messy, which may have contributed to pigeon shooting’s brief Olympic life span.

Makes me proud to be Australian.

(via bluecollarclassicist)

jackrusher:

Perikles Kakounis, a gold medalist at the delightfully bizarre 1904 Summer Olympics (“Thomas Hicks was the first to cross the finish-line legally, after having received several doses of strychnine sulfate mixed with brandy from his trainers”).  It says a great deal about improvements in nutrition and training methodology that I’m stronger now than he was then.  Modern olympians from the same discipline look like this.

“Hurry, I’m having a fit of the vapours — my brandy with a strychnine chaser quickly.”

poundoflogic:

Opening ceremonies of the first modern Olympics, held in Athens, 1896