Olympic Cavalcade

30 -OLYMPIC CAVALCAbE athletic meeting, outside Scandinavia, held on tlle Continent. That was the Dresden F.C. in Germany. The Germans derided the club and rudely chalked Apfen Theater upon the fence which protected the ground. The members were a Russian Prince, Englishmen, a Frenchman and Americans. The club was not joined by a single German. The sports .meeting went on, however, as an annual affair unaer Royal patronage, for many years. Meanwhile, the second of the modern Olympiads, for which de Cou– bertin had hoped and prophesied so much, did not turn out to be all that it was expected to be. The French did not take all the interest, nor show all the enthusiasm, for the Games that was expected of them. I am not sure either that the English thought that the _!;ames had come to stay. Very little - attempt was made, I f<mcy, to really attract ~thletes. So the Games began to fall into the category of side-shows to National an~ International Trade Exhibitions. _- For example, the U.S.A. team, made up largely of members of the N~w YorkA.C., was led by Charles H. Sherrill, the famous-sprinter, who had b€en the first athlete ever to show the crouch start. Later he became a _general in _the U.S. Army, Ambassador to Turkey and a member of the Olympic _Committee: - - ~ All the Americans saw: after their arrival in Paris was the Seul Programme Official, a four-page folder which informed-them of what the¥ believed to be the nature of the proceedings. It wa~ set out as fbllows: - - Republique Fran;ais ExpositiQn Unive!selle de 1900 · Championa£s Internationaux _ Courses" a Pied et CQncours Athletiques Amateurs _Organises Par L'Union des . Soci~tes Fnznyaises de Sports: )ithlitiq]fes. -- Samedi 14 Juillet and Dimanc"he 15 ]uillet a ~ h _du matin a 2 _h d_e l' apr?s-1]1.idi. There were_fi:tty-five ~thlete:;_ in the American party, who thought they were going to compe~e in sorl1e sort of internationa~ matc::h,-which w-as to be an integra_! part of the_Paris E{illibition. They did not know until they received_the medals they had w:on that they were thereafter entitled to dub - themselves Olympic Champions. - .All, that is; save the veteran James B. Connolly, wHo came again to compete :at hi~ _own expense. The contingent from the New York A. C. travelled at the expense of tb:eir dub. The lone raiders; I am told, each footed his own bilL The_ A~ericans came ·mainly from Yale, Princeton, - Pennsylv~nia, Sytacuse, Cfiicago and Michigan Univer~ities, and t.here were ~ ~ome repres~ntatives _ohhe Americ_an clubs. The ;vhole te_am was und~r the