|
|
The South
Asian Life & Times - SALT |
|
|||
|
Contents Cover Story
|
|
||||
|
It was exactly 104 years ago that London held the
Olympic Games for the first time. The 1908 Games were officially opened on
27 April by HRH King Edward VII and stretched over a period of six months.
When the Games closed on 31 October, Great Britain topped the medal table
with 145 medals. The 1908 Games were also the first truly global
Olympics – 2,000 athletes representing 22 nations. But there was scant pomp
and ceremony; no torch relay; and no elaborate podium celebrations. There
was no digital technology - events and results were announced by the City
Toastmaster using a 2 feet long megaphone. The Games brochure carried a
couple of ads, one of which was that of Pear’s Soap. The cost at the time
was £20,000 – not even a fraction of the likely cost of £20 billion for the
2012 Games. The first modern-day
Olympics were held in Athens in 1896, followed by the Paris Olympics of 1900
and the St Louis games of 1904. The 1908 Olympics were to be held in Rome
but Mount Vesuvius erupted in 1906 and London came to the rescue of the
Italians. A brand new 70,000-seat stadium was built at Shepherd's Bush, West
London, which became known as White City.
|
|||||
|
Copyright © 2000 - 2012 [the-south-asian.com]. Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. |
|||||
