The 1904 Olympic Games - aka the one that was so bad they almost cancelled the Olympics forever

Just the Gist

Nov 20, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast

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Episode description

Imagine if Donald Trump and the dude who created Fyre Fest were allowed to run an Olympics - that’s the level of disaster that was going on at the 1904 St Louis Olympic Games. Nothing was organised, competitors almost died, and the US kept giving citizenship to foreign athletes who won so they could have the highest medal tally. Who cares if cars were literally driving through races? AMERICA WANTED TO WIN BIGLY.

Story starts at approx 20:00

We give you just the gist, but if you want more, there’s this:

Some fun articles to read about the Marathon:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-1904-olympic-marathon-may-have-been-the-strangest-ever-14910747/

https://www.avclub.com/the-1904-olympic-marathon-was-the-worst-race-ever-run-1842740808

This one in particular has some great photos:

https://www.boredpanda.com/1904-olympic-marathon-st-louis/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

And some articles about the Olympics as a whole:

https://www.history.com/news/8-unusual-facts-about-the-1904-st-louis-olympics

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109218288511488239

One of many videos on YouTube about the Games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl6Onu-mhVs

For scale, check out how big the St Louis World’s Fair was in comparison to the Olympics: