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Multi-sport event in Antwerp, Belgium From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1920 Summer Olympics (French: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1920; Dutch: Olympische Zomerspelen van 1920; German: Olympische Sommerspiele 1920), officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad (French: Jeux de la VIIe olympiade; Dutch: Spelen van de VIIe Olympiade; German: Spiele der VII. Olympiade) and commonly known as Antwerp 1920 (French: Anvers 1920; Dutch and German: Antwerpen 1920), were an international multi-sport event held in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium.
In March 1912, during the 13th session of the IOC, Belgium's bid to host the 1920 Summer Olympics was made by Baron Édouard de Laveleye, president of the Belgian Olympic Committee and of the Royal Belgian Football Association. No fixed host city was proposed at the time.
The 1916 Summer Olympics, to have been held in Berlin, capital of the German Empire, were cancelled due to World War I. When the Olympic Games resumed after the war, Antwerp was awarded hosting the 1920 Summer Games as tribute to the Belgian people. The aftermath of the war and the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 affected the Olympic Games not only due to new states being created, but also by sanctions against the nations that lost the war and were blamed for starting it. Hungary, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were banned from competing in the Games. Soviet Russia had just emerged from the Civil War and chose not to attend the Games. Germany did not return to Olympic competition until 1928 and instead hosted a series of games called Deutsche Kampfspiele, starting with the Winter edition of 1922 (which predated the first Winter Olympics).
The United States won the most gold and overall medals at the 1920 Summer Games.
In March 1912, during the 13th session of the IOC, the bid on the behalf of Belgium to host the 1920 Summer Olympics was made by Baron Édouard de Laveleye, president of the Belgian Olympic Committee and of the Royal Belgian Football Association. No fixed host city was proposed at the time.[4]
The organizing committee was created on 9 August 1913. It had four presidents:
Among the 22 vice-presidents of the committee were people with a military or industrial background, and further people from sports organizations like Paul Havenith, president of the football and athletics club K. Beerschot V.A.C. and Nicolaas Jan Cupérus, president of the Belgian Gymnastics Federation.[5]
The first action of the committee was to send an official letter to the IOC in Paris, confirming Antwerp as the city for the Belgian Olympic bid. With Antwerp confirmed as the Olympic Games host, Belgium began reconstructing the Beerschot Stadium into the Olympisch Stadion.[6] Construction on the new Olympic stadium began in July 1919 and finished in May 1920.[7]
In 1914, a 109-page brochure was created to promote the idea of Antwerp as a host city for the Olympics: Aurons-nous la VIIème Olympiade à Anvers? (Will we have the 7th Olympiad at Antwerp?). It was sent to all IOC members and was used during the 6th Olympic Congress in Paris in 1914, where the candidacies of Amsterdam (which would eventually host the 1928 Summer Olympics), Antwerp, Budapest, and Rome (which would eventually host the 1960 Summer Olympics) were discussed. Despite a slight preference at the time for Budapest, no final choice was made, and the outbreak of World War I soon afterwards prevented any further progress.[8]
In 1915, Lyon made a bid for the 1920 Games, but after some discussion, they agreed to support Antwerp and postpone their bid until 1924 if Antwerp was liberated in time to organize the Games. The support for Belgium by cousin country France, then the leading country of the IOC, also meant that Amsterdam and Budapest (in an enemy state) had no chance for the 1920 games against Antwerp.
New candidacies from American cities did not have that disadvantage, and bids were received from Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Atlanta (which would eventually host the 1996 Summer Olympics), while Cuba also submitted a bid for Havana.
However, shortly after the armistice in November 1918, the IOC decided to give Antwerp their first preference, if they were still willing to host the 1920 Games. In March 1919, the Belgian Olympic Committee decided to go ahead with the organization of the Games: on 5 April 1919, at a meeting in Lausanne, Antwerp was officially declared the host city for the games of the VIIth Olympiad.[9]
The 1920 Summer Games organizers had very little time to prepare. The time between the IOC's decision of choosing Antwerp as the host city and the opening ceremony was 1 year, 4 months, and 9 days. Making this the shortest amount of time for a host city to plan and organize an Olympic games.[10]
An executive committee was established on 17 April 1919, with Henri de Baillet-Latour as chairman and Alfred Verdyck, the secretary of the Belgian Union of Football Clubs, as general secretary. Seven commissions were created, to deal with finances, accommodation, press relations, propaganda, schedules, transport, and festivities. Finances and scheduling proved to be the two hardest parts to tackle: the program of events only was published in February 1920, six months before the official start of the Games.[11]
Between 23 and 30 April 1920, an ice hockey tournament marked the early start of the Games. Held in the "Palais de Glace" or Ice Palace in Antwerp, it was the first time that ice hockey was an Olympic sport.[12]
The first stone of the new Olympisch Stadion was laid on 4 July 1919 by Jan De Vos, mayor of Antwerp, and inaugurated less than a year later on 23 May 1920 with a gymnastics demonstration.[13]
When the Olympic Games began, the stadium was still unfinished with some events being built over fortifications and others using existing locations. The athletes quarters were crowded and athletes slept on folding cots.[14]
The nautical stadium or Stade Nautique d'Antwerp was built at the end of the Jan Van Rijswijcklaan, using the city ramparts there as a spectator's stand. Other events, like shooting, boxing, and equestrian sports, were held at pre-existing locations in and around Antwerp and as far away as Ostend.[15]
The amount of spectators were low throughout Antwerp's Summer Olympics since not many people could afford tickets. In the closing days of the Olympic Games, students were allowed to attend the event for free.[16] After the conclusion of the Olympic Games, Belgium recorded a loss of more than 600 million francs.[17]
There were 162 events in 28 disciplines that were part of the Olympic program in 1920.[1] The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.
|
Korfball was a demonstration sport.[48]
Women's water polo was a demonstration sport.[23]
Seventeen sports venues were used in the 1920 Summer Olympics. This marked the first time that the football tournament was spread throughout the country, which has mostly been the case since.[49]
A total of 29 nations participated in the Antwerp Games, only one more than in 1912, as Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were not invited, having lost World War I and sanctioned for starting it. From the newly created European states, only Estonia took part, as Czechoslovakia succeeded Bohemia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes succeeded Serbia, with both nations had sent athletes prior to World War I (in the case of Bohemia as part of the Austrian Empire). Soviet Russia was busy with the Polish-Soviet War and therefore was unable to form an Olympic team (Poland in turn, had never participated in the games before, only doing so in later editions). Brazil and Monaco competed as nations at the Olympic Games for the first time. New Zealand, which had competed as part of a combined team with Australia in 1908 and 1912, competed on its own for the first time. The games marked the return of Argentina and India to the competitions.
At the time, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and South Africa were all part of the British Empire. Egypt was a British protectorate (a state not part of the British Empire but nonetheless administered by the United Kingdom).
| Participating National Olympic Committees |
|---|
|
Dominion of Newfoundland had one competitor, Eric Robertson. But as the dominion had no official Olympic committee, his nationality could not be confirmed and he represented Great Britain.[78]As the local Olympic Organizing Committee went bankrupt during the Antwerp 1920 Games, no official report of the Games was ever produced. The documents of the Games were archived at the Belgium Olympic Committee headquarters in Brussels.[79]
| Country | Athletes |
|---|---|
 Belgium | 336 |
 France | 304 |
 United States | 288 |
 Sweden | 260 |
 Great Britain | 235 |
 Norway | 194 |
 Italy | 174 |
 Denmark | 154 |
 Netherlands | 146 |
 Czechoslovakia | 121 |
 Switzerland | 77 |
 Finland | 63 |
 Greece | 57 |
 Canada | 53 |
 South Africa | 39 |
 Spain | 32 |
 Luxembourg | 25 |
 Egypt | 22 |
 Brazil | 19 |
 Japan | 15 |
 Estonia | 14 |
 Australia | 13 |
 Portugal | 13 |
 Yugoslavia | 12 |
 India | 5 |
 Monaco | 4 |
 New Zealand | 4 |
 Chile | 2 |
 Argentina | 1 |
| Total | 2,682 |
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These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1920 Games.[80] These were the first Olympics where the host nation did not win the most medals overall.
* Host nation (Belgium)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States (USA) | 41 | 27 | 27 | 95 |
| 2 | Sweden (SWE) | 19 | 20 | 25 | 64 |
| 3 | Finland (FIN) | 15 | 10 | 9 | 34 |
| 4 | Great Britain (GBR) | 14 | 16 | 13 | 43 |
| 5 | Belgium (BEL)* | 14 | 11 | 11 | 36 |
| 6 | Norway (NOR) | 13 | 9 | 9 | 31 |
| 7 | Italy (ITA) | 13 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
| 8 | France (FRA) | 9 | 19 | 13 | 41 |
| 9 | Netherlands (NED) | 4 | 2 | 5 | 11 |
| Totals (9 entries) | 142 | 119 | 117 | 378 | |
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