Stan Rowley - Unfinished Business

The 1900 Olympics in Paris wasn't the most notable of all of the Olympiads (besides being the first Olympics in which women were allowed to compete), but it is the one I randomly clicked on when looking for random things to research.

There were some awesome things to note during these Olympics though, and I will cover a few of them over the course of a few posts. First: Stan Rowley.

Rowley was an Australian sprinter who would end up going on to win 4 medals at the 1900 Olympics. Cool, the guy won a few medals there are a ton of people who have won multiple medals, what's the big deal? Not all of his medals were for the same country. Rowley won 3 medals for Australia and one for Great Britain.

Rowley won bronze in his 3 sprint events (60 meter, 100 meters and 200 meters) and was ready to head back to Australia and heard kangaroos, or whatever Australian people did for work back then. Friends from the British running teams approached him about running in the 5000 meter team race with them. A few issues come to mind when he was asked to run, mainly that he was not British and he was not a distance runner. Luckily, his friends had solutions. But, why?

Was it because Australia was once a colony of Britain and they had some sort of dual citizenship where they could swap teams whenever their mates asked? Technically, at the time of the 1900 Olympics they were still a colony, (the 6 colonies of Australia, represented by the six stars below formed a federation under British rule after the Olympics in 1901, only breaking constitutional ties with Britain in 1931) but that wasn't why Rowley was able to compete. Why would you even bring this up if that wasn't the reason? Well, I am the one writing this and I wanted to show you their flags because I think they are kind of neat.

For reasons I am still unable to figure out, the 1900 Olympics allowed teams of mixed countries to compete. It might have been because there were only about 1,200 athletes (compared to the 11,000+ athletes competing at Rio), but I can't quite find out why, and I would look more but I already wasted enough of your time with those flags.

Okay, so he can compete in a group with other countries so everyone can win more medals (actually, at the 1900 Olympics, very few medals were awarded, instead competitors were given trophies/cups/the feeling of a job well done). But Rowley was admittedly not a distance runner, why would they want him? Essentially, the way the 5000 meter team race is set up is that you are awarded a point for a member of your team finishing (1st gets 1 point, 2nd gets 2 points, etc) and the team with the fewest points wins. The race was also only being run between France and Great Britain, so they were confident they could beat the French, they just needed someone to run in their final spot. Well, walk. Actually, they didn't even need him to finish the race. After the first lap, Rowley started walking and once the 9th person finished, the judges actually told Rowley he did not need to complete the race. He had completed about 7 of the 10 laps required, and they felt it was pointless to watch him walk 3 more laps by himself.

A gold medal for walking a race would not be awarded until the 1904 Olympics when the a half mile racewalk was added to the decathlon.

Coolest Source: THE 1900 OLYMPIC GAMES Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary by Bill Mallon

Recommended Listening while reading: Olympic Theme Song

#olympics #sports