1924 Summer Olympics

• The Uruguay national football team won the gold medal in football which is recognized as a world championship by FIFA.
• The opening ceremony and several sporting events took place in the Olympic Stadium of Colombes, which had a capacity of 45,000 in 1924.
• This VIII Olympiad was the last one organised under the presidency of Pierre de Coubertin.
• The "Flying Finns" dominated the long-distance running, while the British and Americans dominated the shorter events. Paavo Nurmi won the 1500 m and 5,000 m (which were held with only an hour between them) and the cross country run. Ville Ritola won the 10,000 m and the 3,000 m steeplechase, while finishing second to Nurmi on the 5,000 m and cross country. Albin Stenroos won the marathon, while the Finnish team (with Nurmi and Ritola) was victorious in the 3,000 m and cross country team events.
• The British runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell won the 100 m and the 400 m events, respectively. Liddell refused to compete in the 100-metre dash because it was held on a Sunday and he was an observant Christian. Their stories were depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire. In addition, Douglas Lowe won the 800-metre competition.
• The marathon distance was fixed at 42.195 km (26.219 mi), from the distance run at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London.
• The 1924 Olympics were the first to use the standard 50 m pool with marked lanes.
• Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller won three gold medals in swimming and one bronze in water polo.
• Harold Osborn won gold medals and set Olympic records in both the high jump and the decathlon at the 1924 Olympics. His 6' 6" high jump remained the Olympic record for 12 years, while his decathlon score of 7,710.775 points also set a world record and resulted in worldwide press coverage calling him the "world's greatest athlete".
• Fencer Roger Ducret of France won five medals, of which three were gold.
• In gymnastics, 24 men scored a perfect 10. Twenty-three of them scored it in the now-discontinued event of rope climbing. Albert Seguin scored a 10 here and also a perfect 10 on side vault.
• The Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) was used for the first time at the Olympics. It had been used before by the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques, a French sporting federation whose founding members included Pierre de Coubertin.^[4] De Coubertin took the motto from his friend Henri Didon, a Dominican priest who had coined during a speech before a Paris youth gathering of 1891.^[5]
• Ireland was given formal recognition as an independent nation in the Olympic Movement in Paris in 1924, and it was at these games that Ireland made its first appearance in an Olympic Games as an independent nation.
• Originally called Semaine des Sports d'Hiver ("Week of Winter Sports") and held in association with the 1924 Summer Olympics, the sports competitions held in Chamonix between 25 January and 5 February 1924 were later designated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the I Olympic Winter Games. (1924 Winter Olympics)
• These were the first Games to have an Olympic Village.
• The Art competitions at the 1924 Summer Olympics were the first time that the Olympic Art competitions were contested seriously, with 193 entries in five categories. A total of 14 medals were awarded, though none were given in the music category.^[6]

126 events in 23 disciplines, comprising 17 sports, were part of the Olympic program in 1924. The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.

Demonstration sports

• Basque pelota
• Canoeing
• La canne
• Savate ^[7]

Jeux de L’Enfance

The Jeux de L’Enfance, a program of youth sports competitions and activities, were held by Olympic organizers alongside the Games in cooperation with the YMCA.^[8][9] The following future Olympic sports were exhibited:

• Baseball
• Basketball
• Volleyball

Seventeen sports venues were used in the 1924 Summer Olympics. Stade de Colombes served as the final venue for the 1938 FIFA World Cup between Italy and Hungary.

A total of 44 nations were represented at the 1924 Games. Germany was still absent, having not been invited by the Organizing Committee.^[27] China (although it did not compete), Ecuador, Ireland, Lithuania, and Uruguay attended the Olympic Games for the first time, while the Philippines competed for first time in an Olympic Games as a nation (though it first participated in the 1900 Summer Olympic Games, also in this city). Latvia and Poland also attended the Summer Olympic Games for the first time (having both appeared earlier at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix).

• China also took part in the Opening Ceremony, but its four athletes (all tennis players) withdrew from competition.^[28]

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees

IOC	Country	Athletes
FRA	France	401
GBR	Great Britain	239
USA	United States	229
ITA	Italy	200
BEL	Belgium	172
NED	Netherlands	153
ESP	Spain	129
SWE	Sweden	108
FIN	Finland	90
DEN	Denmark	89
HUN	Hungary	89
ARG	Argentina	77
SUI	Switzerland	75
TCH	Czechoslovakia	70
CAN	Canada	65
POL	Poland	65
NOR	Norway	62
ROM	Romania	51
AUT	Austria	49
EST	Estonia	44
LAT	Latvia	41
IRL	Ireland	39
YUG	Yugoslavia	37
AUS	Australia	36
EGY	Egypt	33
TUR	Turkey	31
URU	Uruguay	31
POR	Portugal	30
RSA	South Africa	30
GRE	Greece	26
BUL	Bulgaria	24
LUX	Luxembourg	22
LTU	Lithuania	13
MEX	Mexico	13
BRA	Brazil	12
CHI	Chile	11
CUB	Cuba	9
JPN	Japan	9
HAI	Haiti	8
IND	India	7
MON	Monaco	7
ROC	Republic of China	4
NZL	New Zealand	4
ECU	Ecuador	3
PHI	Philippines	1
Total	3,089

These are the nations that wonmedals the 1924 Games.

  *   Host nation (France)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States	45	27	27	99
2	Finland	14	13	10	37
3	France*	13	15	10	38
4	Great Britain	9	13	12	34
5	Italy	8	3	5	16
6	Switzerland	7	8	10	25
7	Norway	5	2	3	10
8	Sweden	4	13	12	29
9	Netherlands	4	1	5	10
10	Belgium	3	7	3	13
11	Australia	3	1	2	6
12	Denmark	2	5	2	9
13	Hungary	2	3	4	9
14	Yugoslavia	2	0	0	2
15	Czechoslovakia	1	4	5	10
16	Argentina	1	3	2	6
17	Estonia	1	1	4	6
18	South Africa	1	1	1	3
19	Uruguay	1	0	0	1
20	Austria	0	3	1	4
	Canada	0	3	1	4
22	Poland	0	1	1	2
23	Haiti	0	0	1	1
	Japan	0	0	1	1
	New Zealand	0	0	1	1
	Portugal	0	0	1	1
	Romania	0	0	1	1
Totals (27 entries)		126	127	125	378

• Pierre de Coubertin—founder of the IOC & father of the modern Olympics movement—personally awarded 21 gold medals to members of the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition including 12 Britons, 7 Indians, 1 Australian and 1 Nepalese.^[29][30]

The 1924 Summer Olympics were the second edition of the Summer Olympics to be held in Paris. 100 years later, the city will host the 2024 Summer Olympics, marking the third time the city hosts the games. One venue from the 1924 Games is slated to be used in 2024. The extensively renovated and downsized main stadium, known since 1928 as Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir, will host field hockey.

Last surviving competitor

The last surviving competitor of the 1924 Summer Olympics was Croatian swimmer Ivo Pavelić, who died on 22 February 2011 at the age of 103; he competed for Yugoslavia, which Croatia was part of at the time. ^[31]

• 1924 Winter Olympics
• Olympic Games celebrated in France
  • 1900 Summer Olympics – Paris
  • 1924 Summer Olympics – Paris
  • 1924 Winter Olympics – Chamonix
  • 1968 Winter Olympics – Grenoble
  • 1992 Winter Olympics – Albertville
  • 2024 Summer Olympics – Paris

• List of IOC country codes
• Chariots of Fire

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1924 Summer Olympics.

• "Paris 1924". Olympics.com. International Olympic Committee.
• Comité Olympique Français. Avé, M. (ed.). Les Jeux de la VIII^e Olympiade Paris 1924 – Rapport Officiel [The Games of the VIIIth Olympiad Paris 1924 – Official Report] (PDF) (in French). Paris: Librairie de France. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2008. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
• 1924 medal winners – from CBS
• Picture of the Olympic Stadium of Colombes
• Original footage of the opening ceremony of the 1924 Summer Olympics (by Polygoon) (in Dutch)
• Olympic games handbook; containing official records of the seventh Olympiad