The Belgian king (or) always showed himself in uniform during the games and was very popular because he had long resisted the Germans during the war.
At the age of 14, water diver Aileen Riggin was the youngest athlete in Antwerp in 1920. Between her training, she drives across Flanders with colleagues, including to the battlefields of the First World War. You come across trenches and bunkers. “There were still helmets of German soldiers lying around,” writes the American Riggin in her memoir. “I picked up a boot and dropped it, because it contained the remains of a foot.”
On August 14, 1920, exactly a hundred years ago, the perhaps most unusual Olympic Games in history began in Antwerp. A festival of privation, 20 months after the great catastrophe of the 20th century that killed around 17 million people. Never before and probably never after has a major sporting event been so dominated by war. The Games in Antwerp are comparatively unknown – but some lessons can be drawn from them for the conflict-ridden present.
In the early 20th century it is not clear whether the International Olympic Committee can survive in the long term. The planned games in Berlin in 1916 are canceled. The IOC regards “brave, little Belgium” as a suitable compromise candidate for 1920. The organizers have 16 months to prepare. They forego an invitation to the losers of the war – and so there are no athletes from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. The USA is still busy cleaning up after the war. Many athletes have to cross the Atlantic on the “Princess Matoika”, a rusty military ship that had previously transported 1,800 bodies of soldiers to the USA. Sports official Daniel J. Ferris later reports: “We saw the coffins. The constant smell of formaldehyde was terrible. ”The crossing to Belgium takes 14 days. Athletes threaten to strike several times.
Belgium, one of the largest industrial nations in the world before the war, was badly damaged in 1920. “There weren’t enough apartments for the citizens of Antwerp, and now more than 2,600 athletes were to be accommodated, which created tension,” says sports historian Roland Renson, who wrote the standard work on the 1920 Games – “The Games Reborn”. The Olympic movement was by no means a mass phenomenon at that time; in Belgium it was made up of a bourgeois elite who also influenced the population with militaristic messages. A soldier adorns a poster with a call for volunteers, above it the words: “Train together, break out together, fight together.” Politicians also participate in the post-war interpretation. French sports official Gaston Vidal says: “It is important that France does not lose its reputation in sport. A reputation that we have won in the most important sport: in war. «
For the opening ceremony, spectators stop at a statue in front of the stadium. It does not show an athlete throwing a discus, but a soldier with a grenade. Gun salutes, doves of peace, for the first time in history the Olympic oath: Victor Boin conjures up a “chivalrous spirit”. The Belgian water polo player had destroyed enemy submarines during the war. The Olympic flag with the five rings flies in the stadium for the first time. IOC President Pierre de Coubertin: »Here and there you see a person whose gait is less powerful, whose face looks older. But their strength and endurance prevail. “
The Belgian king, who had long resisted the advance of the German army, is particularly popular. “King Albert performed in uniform during the Olympic Games and visited hospitals between competitions,” says sports journalist Jasper Truyens, who recently published a book about the 1920 Games. “The war was very much part of the Olympic symbolism.” The king attached great importance to exchanges with athletes, such as the long-distance runner Joseph Guillemot. The Frenchman has had lung pain since he was poisoned by mustard gas in the war, but he still wins gold over 5000 meters. Many athletes in Antwerp had served: the British runner Albert Hill, more than four years in the army, won the 800 and 1500 meters. His compatriot Jack Beresford was wounded in France, and in 1920 he won silver in rowing. For some athletes, war is also a part of the future: British runner Philip Noel-Baker won over 1500 meters of silver in 1920. During the Second World War he was State Secretary for War Transport, and as an advocate of disarmament he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.
The Belgians themselves showed little interest in the Olympics in 1920. Tickets are expensive and the weather is bad. Many athletes complain about temporary accommodation in schools, office buildings or on ships. At least the Olympic soccer final is a consolation. Tens of thousands want to see the Belgian team play against Czechoslovakia. Some of them, who don’t have a ticket, dig their way under fences and later sit on the running track next to the lawn. Newspapers state that “stadium trenches” are better than trenches. The Belgians win the final 2-0.
There is a wonderful special exhibition about the Olympic Games 1920 in the “Sportimonium”, the sports and Olympic museum of Belgium, near the city of Mechelen. There, museum director Didier Rotsaert also uses the old flags, photos and certificates for workshops with young people. “With the help of sport, we can make social developments clear,” says Rotsaert. 30 kilometers north, in Antwerp, you have to look for traces of the Olympic Games for a long time. The old stadium has been completely renovated, apart from a few memorabilia in the city museum there is little evidence of one of the most important events in Belgian history.
In 2013, Bart De Wever took over the office of mayor in Antwerp. His nationalist party N-VA is campaigning for Flanders to split off from Belgium – the memory of the global sporting event hardly seems to matter. “We’re wasting a chance,” says historian Bram Constandt from the University of Ghent. “From 1920 we can learn that we don’t always have to strive for the biggest and best games.” For an essay, Constandt looked for connections between 1920, when the Spanish flu had died down with probably more than 25 million deaths, and 2020, when the Olympics in Tokyo had to be postponed by one year due to Corona. “Back then, people in Antwerp had experienced so many disasters,” says Constandt. “Politicians tightened censorship so as not to let the mood sink any further. That is probably one of the reasons why we found next to nothing in the archives about the effects of the Spanish flu on the Olympics. “
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