US dominates as records broken at the second day of the Olympic games
Antwerp, 16 Aug 1920 – Today was a strenuous one at the athletics stadium, beginning at 9.30am with the men's 100 metres.
The final was a somewhat curious race. There were two false starts, then a band struck up and a long wait took place before the music could be stopped and the race could be run. Finally there was a long argument after the finish as to whether there really was a false start. Eventually the official result was announced. American athletes Charley Paddock and Morris Kirkse took gold and silver, respectively and despite winning his semi final comfortably, Britain’s Harry Edwards could only get third place in the final.
The 400m hurdles provided an excellent race between three Americans, Frank Loomis (gold), John Norton (silver), August Desch (bronze) and a Frenchman, Géo André, being close up in fourth place. Incidentally a full second was knocked off the world’s and Olympic record.
Frank Loomis winning the 400m hurdles (Image: Bibliotheque nationale de France)
This great American start is remarkable, as their lead-in to the games was less than ideal. The disruption began on the journey over, with the whole team holding a protest meeting at the condition of their accommodation on board the USS Princess Matoika, a Navy transport ship. They threatened to withdraw if their lodgings in Antwerp were not considerably better, which thankfully they were. Then, with just days to go before the first events, one of their athletes, Dan Ahearn, born in Athea, Co. Limerick, was dismissed from the team for insubordination and was on the verge of leaving Belgium, only to be reinstated just before the opening ceremony.
The rest of the day in the athletics stadium was taken up with Pentathlon events. Other events throughout the day included lawn tennis and Greco-Roman wrestling.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
