Olympic Cavalcade

OLYMPIC CAVALCADE To wind up this chapter I propose dealing with the principally athletic track and fie_ld competitions, which certainly were, and, in the opinion of many people, still are, the most important contests in the total Olympic programme. , Before dealing with those athletic branches of sport, however, let us see what were the other branches and how the nations fared therein. Gym- · nastics retained their old place in ·the Olympic programme, but there were 1· both First and Second-Class contests. The straight team contest was won by j Norway. The five events contest, first class, was won by a Frenchman, with a Greek taking the second class award; but in the six events Individual Competition the first class went to Germany and the second class to Franee. l France was successful, also, in the Men's Lawn Tennis Singles, and the Men's Doubles was won by Decugis (France) in partnership with Germot (France). An Association Football match was played for the first time, and in the , Final Dehmark defeated Smyrna. Franee was again predominant in l' arme blanche. In. the Foil contest Dillon Cavanagh (France) defeated Casimir (Germany). In the Epee, championship for individuals, de la Falaise and Cavanagh were placed first and second, with Van Bligenburgh (Holland) third. Thus France took the first two places. Georgiadis (Greece) beat Casimir for the Sabre Championship, but in the three-cornered Sabre event the result was Casimir (Germany), first; Van Rasen (Holland) secon~ and Toth (Hungary) third. Then came the International Sword contest for Teams with Epee. In this, Hughes, Cavanagh, Mohr and de la Falaise fought De&borough, Duff-Gordon, Newton Robertson and Seligman. The result, as I have said, was actually a aead-heat, but the decision was given to the French team. In the International Sabre contest for teams, a German team (Ekiath,. de Bary, Casimir and Schon) beat the Greek team, and Holland was third. There were contests for professional maztres d'armes, something that I has never happened before or since, to the best ef my knowledge, and both were won by Verbrugge, of Belgium. The Nautical Sports were very numerous. But of the Swimming events, England, Austria and America each took cme. The T earn race was won by Hungary, and Germany carried off the diving. There were also races for canoes, gigs and man-o'-war gigs of various sizes and at different distances. Italy won four of these races and France and Greece one each. There was bicycling also. Italy again predominated with three wins by Verri; for England Matthews and Rushen won the Tandem race and Pett , the 20 paced kilometres. A French pair, Vast and Bardonneau, won the 84 kilometres Road Race. That leaves only the Shooting contests. Of these Switzerland won 5, Franee 4, Norway 3 and England and Greece 2 each. From the very Ist Olympiad it has been strictly laid down that there is