Olympics once awarded medals for poetry; 1912 gold went to founder under 2 fake names

At the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, competitors could win gold without running, jumping or throwing anything. They could submit a poem, compose a piece of music, design a building or produce a sculpture, provided their work had something to do with sport. The arrangement was the fulfilment of an ambition held by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, who believed that the competition was incomplete without the arts.

He was also sufficiently convinced of his own literary credentials to enter the first contest, although the judges had no idea who they were rewarding.The ancient ideal behind Coubertin’s Olympic visionCoubertin’s idea was not simply to make the Olympics more cultured, or to provide spectators with something to admire between athletic events. He was attempting to restore a relationship between physical achievement and artistic expression that he believed had been lost over centuries.

The distinction mattered to him because he regarded the ancient Olympic tradition as something considerably more expansive than a gathering of athletes.At the Games in ancient Greece, competitors were not the only figures attracting attention. Poets also travelled to Olympia, where they recited their work before audiences and celebrated athletic victories through commissioned odes.

The lyric poet Pindar became particularly associated with this tradition, writing elaborate victory poems for successful competitors, which were performed by choruses during public celebrations. The athlete’s achievement could thus become the subject of a literary work, with physical prowess and artistic accomplishment occupying the same cultural space.The idea had a philosophical lineage as well.

Plato’s Republic described an education that combined gymnastics for the body with music for the soul, while the classical ideal of harmony offered Coubertin a model for the kind of individual he wanted the modern Olympics to recognise. He later described this balance as the reunion of two estranged partners, “muscle and mind”, whose separation had impoverished both.The historical circumstances of his youth helped shape that conviction.

The first major excavations at Olympia began during the 1870s, uncovering extensive remains of the sanctuary that had hosted the ancient Games, along with thousands of artefacts. Coubertin was then a teenager in France, receiving a classical education at a Jesuit school after having encountered the ruins of ancient Rome during childhood family travels. The discoveries at Olympia gave a new immediacy to the ancient world he was studying.Richard Stanton, author of The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, told Smithsonian magazine in 2012 that Coubertin had been particularly impressed by the idea of an Olympian who possessed abilities beyond athletics, including knowledge of music and literature.

Recreating the Games without some representation of the arts, Stanton explained, would have left the modern undertaking incomplete.A campaign to bring art back into the GamesThe first modern Olympics, held in Athens in 1896 after Coubertin helped establish the International Olympic Committee in 1894, contained no artistic competitions. The programme included events such as discus, swimming, fencing and pole vaulting, but the founder’s preferred marriage of intellectual and physical achievement remained largely theoretical.

The addition of water polo and archery in 1900, followed by boxing and lacrosse in 1904, did little to address the imbalance.Coubertin continued to press his case, eventually turning the proposed artistic programme into a serious Olympic project. On August 5, 1904, he published an article titled “The Roman Olympiad” on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro, arguing that the modern Games should recover the character of their ancient predecessors.

He wrote that, during Olympia’s period of splendour, “the arts and literature joined with sport to ensure the greatness of the Olympic Games”, and called for their return to the modern competition.The argument received a more formal hearing on May 23, 1906, when Coubertin convened the Consultative Conference on Art, Letters and Sport in the foyer of the Comédie-Française in Paris.

Delegates considered how artistic disciplines might participate in the modern Olympics, including whether literary competitions could be organised and how sporting experiences might inspire writers. Coubertin’s opening address returned to his preferred metaphor, describing the separation of art and sport as a long estrangement between partners who had once enjoyed a fruitful relationship.The conference agreed that five artistic disciplines should be included at the 1908 Olympics: architecture, sculpture, painting, music and literature.

Collectively, the competitions became known as the Pentathlon of the Muses, and the entries were required to be original works inspired by sport. The plan appeared settled until circumstances intervened in a manner that was particularly unfortunate for an undertaking already struggling to find its place.Mount Vesuvius erupted in the spring of 1906, killing about 200 people and causing considerable damage around Naples.

Italy subsequently relinquished its plans to host the 1908 Olympics in Rome, with London taking over the event. The artistic competitions were postponed, leaving Coubertin to wait another four years before his project could finally appear on the Olympic programme.The founder enters under two assumed namesThe opportunity arrived at Stockholm in 1912, although the preparations were hardly encouraging.

Interest among Sweden’s artistic community was limited, and the number of submissions threatened to make the entire undertaking look rather less impressive than Coubertin had imagined. Instead of abandoning the plan, he personally took charge of organising the competitions, which were divided into the five categories agreed upon six years earlier.The rules were straightforward enough.

Works had to be …