Did you know that?
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** Despite strong Greek pressure for the exclusive rights to organise future
Games, Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement and
the president of the IOC, won the agreement to hold the 1900 Olympic Games
in Paris.
** Baron de Coubertin made a serious mistake of making the 1900 Olympic
Games a part of the Fifth Universal Exposition which was also being held
in Paris. In the event the Games merely became a sideshow to the fair.
** Amid the general confusion many competitors, even medal winners, were not
aware until much later that they were actually competing at the Olympic
Games in 1900. Many of the athletes died without ever knowing that they
had participated in the Olympics.
** Women were allowed to compete for the first time in the 1900 Games at
Paris.
** Out of the 1225 competitors in the 1900 Games only 19 were women.
** The first women Olympic competitors were French - Madame Brohy and
Mademoiselle Ohnier - who took part in the croquet competition.
** The first female Olympic champion was Britain's Wimbledon Charlotte
Cooper, who won the tennis singles title in 1900.
** Cricket, croquet and golf made their first and last appearance in the
1900 Olympic Games, although golf was also played in the next Games in
1904.
** The track and field events of the 1900 Olympic Games were held on uneven
turf and the jumpers had to dig their own pits.
** France, the host nation, in the 1900 Games had a record-sized team
numbering 884, the largest ever entered for the event.
** The decision to have the 1900 Olympic competition on Sunday upset many of
the Americans, who represented the universities that were controlled by
the church.
** In the 1900 Games Irving Baxter became the first athlete of American
Indian ancestry to win at the Olympic Games, when he won the high jump and
pole vault events.
** Norman Pritchard representing India in the 1900 Games won the first
medals by an Asian sportsman with two silvers in the 200m flat and hurdles
races.
** Canada won its first Olympic gold medal in the 1900 Games, when George
Orton, billed as an Ameri can, won the 2500m steeplechase. But his Canadian
nationality was discovered much later as Orten had entered the race
wearing the colours of the University of Pennsylvania.
** The swimming events in the 1900 Games produced unusually fast times
because they were held in the River Seine and the swimmers swum with the
current.
** The cricket event for the 1900 Olympics games was between just two teams
- Great Britain (repre sented by the Devon and Somerset Wanderers Cricket
Club) and France, made up of players from the British embassy. Needless to
mention the former (262) beat the host nation (104) by 158 runs!
*** Most of the winners in the 1900 Games did not receive medals, but rather
cups and and trophies.
*** The 1900 Games came to an ignominious end - without a Closing Ceremony!