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1904 Summer Olympics

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Games of the III Olympiad

Host city St. Louis, United States
Nations participating 12
Athletes participating 651
Events 91 in 17 sports
Opening ceremony July 1, 1904
Closing ceremony November 23, 1904
Officially opened by David Francis
Stadium Francis Field
The 1904 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the III Olympiad, were held in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States from July 1, 1904 to November 23, 1904. The fellow American city of Chicago had won the original bid to host the games, but the Louisiana Purchase Exposition would not accept another international event in the same timeframe. The organization began to plan for its own sports activities, informing the Chicago OCOG that the Exposition intended to eclipse the Olympic Games unless the games would be moved to St. Louis. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, gave in.

Considered the lesser of two evils by de Coubertin, St. Louis repeated the mistakes made at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Competitions were reduced to a side-show of the World’s Fair and were lost in the chaos of other, more popular cultural exhibits. The games lasted for months; in fact, James Edward Sullivan tried to hold an event every day, for the duration of the fair. The Olympic events were again mixed with other sporting events, but where Paris hardly ever mentioned the Olympics, Sullivan called all his sports events “Olympic”. From all such events, the IOC is taken to have declared 94 events Olympic. The participants totaled 651 athletes - 645 men and 6 women, representing 12 countries. However, only 42 events actually included athletes who were not from the United States.