Paris Games 1924 — Tarzan, Chariots of Fire and a South African orphan’s boxing gold

American Johnny Weissmuller won three swimming golds and a bronze playing water polo during the 1924 Summer Olympics. (Photo: Getty Images)

By Mike Wills

21 Jul 2024

The 2024 Olympics in Paris is the perfect time to reflect on the event in the city 100 years ago.

Paris is bracing itself to host the 2024 Olympics. Exactly 100 years ago, the city was in the same state. The 1924 Paris games symbolised French resurgence six years after the horrors of World War 1. No expense was spared and a massive loss was incurred in spite of huge crowds.

The 2024 version, no doubt, will suffer the same forlorn fiscal fate.

About 3,000 competitors (only 135 of whom were women) from 44 nations competed in 17 sports in 1924. Pointedly, Germany was not invited.

This year, 10,500 competitors from more than 200 nations will contest 32 sports, and the Russians and Israelis will be providing the political challenges.

The 1924 Games are best known in the English-speaking world as the “Chariots of Fire Olympics”. The Oscar-winning 1981 movie, with its earworm Vangelis soundtrack, told the epic story of the sprint golds won by the obsessive Englishman Harold Abrahams and the devout Scotsman Eric Lidell, who also played on the wing for his country at rugby.

But there was plenty else going on 100 years ago. Johnny Weismuller, who would later achieve global fame as Tarzan in 12 films, won three golds in the pool, and the legendary American Helen Wills Moody won tennis gold.

Paris Games 2024 Helen Wills Moody American Helen Wills Moody won tennis gold. (Photo: Getty Images)

The famous Flying Finns took every long-distance gold, with Paavo Nurmi winning both the 1,500m and the 5,000m, even though the events were held only one hour apart. Ville Ritola won the 10,000m and the 3,000m steeplechase, and Albin Stenroos the marathon.

It was quite a haul for Finland, which also won the 3,000m team event.

Remarkably, the US beat France to win the last rugby gold medal until Sevens appeared on the 2016 Rio schedule. During that final, 30,000 French fans reportedly booed the Americans throughout, threw bottles and rocks onto the field, knocked an American reserve unconscious, and forced the winners to be escorted to their locker room under police protection.

Boxing star

In 1924, an all-white Union of South Africa team of 30 took part in seven sports, returning with a matching set of singletons – one gold, one silver, one bronze. This was a smaller team and a diminished result from four years earlier in Antwerp, when South Africa took 10 medals, including three golds.

South Africa’s lone gold medallist in 1924 represents a remarkable tale (for which I must credit the excellent Wikipedia entry on his life). In Paris, at the age of 19, Willie Smith became the youngest Olympic boxing champion to date when he claimed the bantamweight title won four years earlier by compatriot Clarence Walker.

P52-Mike-Olympics Paavo Nurmi won gold in the 1,500m and the 5,000m track events. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Smith had been an orphan in the St George’s Home in Johannesburg, known for his willingness to get into a brawl. A former national champion gave boxing lessons at the orphanage and spotted his potential at the age of 12, before passing him on to trainer Johnny Watson, who turned him from a scrapper into a stylish and effective boxer, good enough to win four consecutive bouts in Paris and claim gold.

Smith became a big name on the local pro circuit in the late 1920s. He fought in the US and Australia before his career fizzled out. He then ran the Richmond Hotel in Hamberg, Roodepoort, while becoming a well-known referee who handled Vic Toweel’s world title bouts. Smith died of a heart attack in 1955, at the age of 51.

American Johnny Weissmuller won three swimming golds and a bronze in water polo during the 1924 Summer Olympics. (Photo: Getty Images)

South African boxers won medals at every Olympics from 1920 to 1960, until the country’s expulsion from the Games because of apartheid. Given the rich culture the sport still has locally, especially in the Eastern Cape, it is beyond disappointing that the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee has not been able to produce a single medallist in the ring since readmission in 1992.

The only South African silver in 1924 was won by Sid Atkinson from Durban in the 110m hurdles. He would take gold in the same event in Amsterdam four years later. The bronze belonged to the Eastern Cape’s Cecil McMaster in the 10km walk.

Read more Greatest Olympic Moments:

Out of this world — Bob Beamon and the long leap into the 21st century

Pain and glory — how athletes Derek Redmond and Eric Moussambani captured the spirit of the Games

Tatjana and Bianca flew SA’s flag in Covid-hit Tokyo 2020

Astonishing feet — barefoot Abebe Bikila becomes Ethiopia’s first gold medallist at the Games

The fast and the effortless — Usain Bolt made winning gold medals look easy

As for the rest: the track and field squad, other than Atkinson and McMaster, failed to make their finals; Henry Kaltenbrunn could not repeat his cycling silver from 1920.

John Condon and Ivie Richardson came up short in the tennis when they lost a doubles semifinal to Jacques Brugnon and Henri Cochet, and the bronze medal match to René Lacoste and Jean Borotra, which meant they had faced France’s famous Four Musketeers on home clay.

The six shooters came back with nothing and the lone yachtsman, Rupert Ellis-Brown, didn’t get through his heats. But his family business was the well-known Ellis Brown coffee creamer brand and he did go on to be a luminary of Durban’s sailing scene and mayor of the city in the 1940s. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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