Olympic Games in Athens 1

The first **Olympic Games in Athens** took place in 1896 and were the first modern Summer Olympic Games.

## Background

During the 19th century there had been some multi sport events held in various locations in Europe, using the name *Olympic Games* from the ancient Olympics. This included three in Athens in 1859, 1870 and 1875.

## Opening ceremony

The very first opening ceremony was simple. The competing nations assembled in the stadium and before a capacity crowd the King of Greece, George the First, opened the Games. This was followed by nine bands and a 150 strong choir performing a song that would later become the Olympic anthem, composed by Spyridon Samaras and Kostis Palamas. Fourteen nations competed.

## Sports

Nine sports would feature in the first Games. Athletics would feature the most events with twelve, followed by gymnastics with eight and cycling with six. There were five shooting events, four swimming events, three fencing events, two tennis events, two weightlifting events and one wrestling event. There were supposed to be sailing and rowing events as well but they were cancelled.

## Highlights

The athletic events were primarily controlled by the Americans, winning nine of the twelve gold medals on offer. This included all of the field events - with the discus and the triple jump being the first medals to be awarded. The domination of the track events were limited to the short distance races. Australian Edwin Flack won the gold medal in the longer distance events - as the only athlete from the country (at the time still a group of British colonies and not a single country), while the host country won the marathon through Spiridon Louis - a victory that made him a national hero. There was also the unusual situation of teams from multiple countries - which applied to the tennis. There was only one set of medals on offer - for the doubles. This was won by John Pius Boland from the United Kingdom and Friedrich Traun from Germany.

The host country naturally had the most participants. The other gold medals were won in cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting and swimming. The only other countries that sent more than ten participants were Germany, the United States and France.

## Closing ceremony

Unlike later Games, the presentations to the winners were done as part of the closing ceremony. At this time there was nothing for third, with a copper medal for second to go with a laurel branch and a diploma, and a silver medal for the winner with an olive branch and a diploma. Some of the winners received additional awards - such as a cup for the marathon winner Spiridon Louis. The recognition of the winners and so on as gold, silver and nronze medallists is retrospective.

After the presentations were completed, Louis led the athletes in a lap of honour - the first instance of what would become the later tradition of all the athletes entering the stadium together. The Olympic Hymn was played while this took place. The King then formally announced the closure of the Games. At a banquet held four days earlier, he had called for the Games to held in Greece permanently as it had been in ancient times. This would prove to be a wish rather than a reality, and the Games would not return to it's country of origin for 108 years.