1920 Summer Olympics

Games of the VII Olympiad

Host city	Antwerp, Belgium
Nations participating	29
Athletes participating	2,626 (2,561 men, 65 women)
Events	156 in 22 sports
Opening ceremony	14 August
Closing ceremony	12 September
Officially opened by	King Albert I
Athlete's Oath	Victor Boin
Stadium	Olympisch Stadion
Summer:
<  Stockholm 1912 Paris 1924  >
Winter:
Chamonix 1924  >

The 1920 Summer Olympics (French: Les Jeux olympiques d'été de 1920), officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium. 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.

The 1916 Summer Olympics, to be held in Berlin, capital of the German Empire, were cancelled due to World War I. 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. 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 Sailing events were held in Ostend, Belgium, and two in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Host city selection

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.^[1]

The organising committee was created on 9 August 1913. It had four presidents:

• Édouard de Laveleye, president of the Belgian Olympic Committee
• Henri de Baillet-Latour, member of the IOC
• Robert Osterrieth, president of the Royal Yacht Club of Belgium
• Charles Cnoops, vice-president of the Belgian Fencing Association

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.^[2]

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. On 13 September 1913, Pierre de Coubertin, president of the IOC, visited the grounds of the future Olympic Stadion in Beerschot.

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, Antwerp, Budapest, and Rome 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.^[3]

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, made 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), and Cuba also planned a bid for Havana. But shortly after the armistice in November 1918, the IOC decided to give Antwerp the first choice, if they still wanted to host the 1920 Games. In March 1919, the Belgian Olympic Committee decided to go ahead with the organization, and on 5 April 1919, in a meeting in Lausanne, Antwerp was officially declared the host city for the games of the VIIth Olympiad.^[4]

Organization

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.

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.^[5]

The first stone of the new Olympic Stadium at Beerschot 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

Highlights

• These Olympics were the first in which the Olympic Oath was voiced, the first in which doves were released to symbolize peace, and the first in which the Olympic Flag was flown.
• The USA won 41 gold, 27 silver, and 27 bronze medals, the most won by any of the 29 nations attending. Sweden, Great Britain, Finland, and Belgium rounded out the five most successful medal-winning nations.
• The Games also featured a week of winter sports, with figure skating appearing for the first time since the 1908 Olympics, and ice hockey making its Olympic debut.
• Nedo Nadi won 5 gold medals in the fencing events.
• At the age of 72, Sweden's 100 metre running deer double-shot event champion Oscar Swahn, who had participated in the 1908 and 1912 Games, came in second in the team event to become the oldest Olympic medal winner ever.
• 23-year-old Paavo Nurmi won the 10,000 m and 8000 m cross country races, took another gold in team cross country, and a silver in the 5000 m run. His contributions for Finland broke the U.S. dominance record in track and field with 9 medals.
• Duke Kahanamoku retained the 100 m swimming title he won before the war.
• In a rather strange moment in Olympic history, the 12-foot dinghy event in sailing took place in two different countries. The final two races in the event were independently held in the Netherlands, on its own accord, supposedly because the only two competitors in the event were Dutch.^[8]
• Sport shooter Guilherme Paraense won Brazil's very first gold medal at the Olympic Games.
• The United States sent a women's swim team for the first time, having refused during the 1912 Games on the grounds that it was "obscene". The six-woman team produced two gold medals.

Sports/Events

France national football team.

156 events^[9] in 29 disciplines, comprising 22 sports, were part of the Olympic program in 1920. The Sailing program was open for a total of 16 sailing classes, but actually only 14 sailing events were contested. The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.

Demonstration sport

• Korfball

Venues

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.

Participating nations

Participants in the 1920 games, with the nations in blue participating for the first time.

Number of athletes

A total of 29 nations participated in the Antwerp Games, only one more than in 1912, as Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Ottoman Empire were not invited, having lost World War I. From the newly created European states, only Estonia took part, and Czechoslovakia, succeeding Bohemia which had sent athletes prior to World War I as part of the Austrian Empire. Poland was busy with the Polish-Soviet War and therefore was unable to form an Olympic team. Soviet Russia was also not invited as part of its political embargo by the West. Argentina, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, 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  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 had to represent Britain.^[38]

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.^[39]

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees

IOC	Country	Athletes
BEL	Belgium	336
FRA	France	304
USA	United States	288
SWE	Sweden	260
GBR	Great Britain	235
NOR	Norway	194
ITA	Italy	174
DEN	Denmark	154
TCH	Czechoslovakia	121
NED	Netherlands	113
SUI	Switzerland	77
FIN	Finland	63
GRE	Greece	57
CAN	Canada	53
RSA	South Africa	39
ESP	Spain	32
NED	Netherlands	33
LUX	Luxembourg	25
EGY	Egypt	22
BRA	Brazil	21
JPN	Japan	15
EST	Estonia	14
AUS	Australia	13
POR	Portugal	13
YUG	Yugoslavia	12
IND	India	5
MON	Monaco	4
NZL	New Zealand	4
CHI	Chile	2
ARG	Argentina	1
Total	2,626

Medal count

One of the 154 (identical) gold medals awarded at the Games of the VII Olympiad

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1920 Games.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States	41	27	27	95
2	Sweden	19	20	25	64
3	Great Britain	15	15	13	43
4	Finland	15	10	9	34
5	Belgium (host nation)	14	11	11	36
6	Norway	13	9	9	31
7	Italy	13	5	5	23
8	France	9	19	13	41
9	Netherlands	4	2	5	11
10	Denmark	3	9	1	13

See also

• Summer Olympic Games
• Olympic Games
• International Olympic Committee
• List of IOC country codes

Notes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1920 Summer Olympics.

• "Antwerp 1920". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. 
• "Results and Medalists". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee. 
• Openingsceremonie An article about the opening ceremonies of the 1920 Antwerp Olympiade in Flemish.

Olympic Games
Ceremonies Charter Participating nations Summer Olympics Winter Olympics Host cities Bids Venues IOC NOCs Country codes Medal Medal tables Medalists Diploma Scandals and controversies Colonialism Doping Sports Symbols Torch relays Pierre de Coubertin medal Women Deaths WWI
Summer Games	1896 Athens 1900 Paris 1904 St. Louis 1908 London 1912 Stockholm 1916 Berlin 1920 Antwerp 1924 Paris 1928 Amsterdam 1932 Los Angeles 1936 Berlin 1940 Tokyo 1944 London 1948 London 1952 Helsinki 1956 Melbourne 1960 Rome 1964 Tokyo 1968 Mexico City 1972 Munich 1976 Montreal 1980 Moscow 1984 Los Angeles 1988 Seoul 1992 Barcelona 1996 Atlanta 2000 Sydney 2004 Athens 2008 Beijing 2012 London 2016 Rio de Janeiro 2020 Tokyo 2024 Paris 2028 Los Angeles
Winter Games	1924 Chamonix 1928 St. Moritz 1932 Lake Placid 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1940 Sapporo 1944 Cortina d'Ampezzo 1948 St. Moritz 1952 Oslo 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo 1960 Squaw Valley 1964 Innsbruck 1968 Grenoble 1972 Sapporo 1976 Innsbruck 1980 Lake Placid 1984 Sarajevo 1988 Calgary 1992 Albertville 1994 Lillehammer 1998 Nagano 2002 Salt Lake City 2006 Turin 2010 Vancouver 2014 Sochi 2018 Pyeongchang 2022 Beijing 2026
Ancient Olympic Games Intercalated Games 1906 Paralympic Games Youth Olympic Games