INTRODUCTION Throughout human history people have always sought to challenge themselves to compete against others and to discover the limits of their capabilities Such desires can turn destructive leading to war But the ancient Greeks also recognized the good in these human traits and it was because of them that the Olympic Games featuring running races jumping contests throwing competitions and wrestling and boxing matches began more than 2,700 years ago The ancient Olympics ended in a d 393 but the Games were revived in 1896 in hopes of promoting world peace through sports Fittingly the first modern Olympics were held in Athens Greece but they moved around the world every four years after that In 2009 it was announced that the Games would be held in South America for the first time going to Rio de Janeiro Brazil in 2016 Every 1896 Olympian received a medal reading International Olympic Games Athens 1896 4
Gymnastics a set of exercises showcasing athletes strength agility balance and grace fulness was practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans In more modern times the sport was revived in Germany in the early 1800s as a movement called Turnverein Much of the credit for this movement went to physical educators Friedrich Jahn known as the Father of Gymnastics in Germany and Johann GutsMuths who wrote Gymnastik für die Jugend Gymnastics for Youth a textbook that showed how to work gymnastics into school curriculum By the time the first modern Olympics were held in 1896 athletes all across Europe were participating in gymnastics so the sport was featured in the Games of Athens Indeed gymnastics is one of just five sports the others being swimming track and field cycling and fencing that have appeared in every modern Olympiad Featuring events that demand a wide range of physical maneuvers from demonstrations of extreme upper-body power to near impossible body arches to aerial flips and spins gym nastics has long been among the Olympics most popular competitions And the sport has produced its share of legendary athletes and classic moments From America’s George Eyser to Romania’s Nadia Comaneci to China’s Yang Wei gymnasts male and female have thrilled sports fans for more than a century And although gymnastics has also faced low points in the form of apparatus problems and judging controversies such incidents have added their own unforgettable moments to the history of this elegant Olympic sport INTRODUCTION 5 A stamp honoring German Friedrich Jahn famed for his many contributions to gymnastics
GOLD SILVER BRONZE AND WOOD 1904 ST LOUIS MISSOURI Some details of the life of Olympic gymnast George Eyser are unknown What is known is that Eyser was born in 1871 in Kiel Germany and that he lost his left leg as a child after being hit by a train Eyser emigrated to the United States with his family in 1885 and gained American citizenship in 1894 Eventually he made his way to St Louis where he found work as a bookkeeper for a construction company It is also known that Eyser was not only a gymnastics participant at the 1904 St Louis Games but he was a medalist as well In fact he was one of the Olympics greatest early champions winning medals three of them gold in six different events George Eyser center pictured in 1908 as a member of the American Concordia Turnverein club 6 1 8 9 6 A T H E N S G R E E C E 1 9 0 0 P A R I S F R A N C E 1 9 0 4 S T L O U I S M I S S O U R I 1 9 0 8 L O N D O N E N G L A N D 1 9 1 2 S T O C K H O L M S W E D E N 1 9 2 0 A N T W E R P B E L G I U M 1 9 2 4 P A R I S F R A N C E 1 9 2 8 A M S T E R D A M N E T H E R L A N D S 1 9 3 2 L O S A N G E L E S C A L I F O R N I A 1 9 3 6 B E R L I N G E R M A N Y 1 9 4 8 L O N D O N E N G L A N D 1 9 5 2 H E L S I N K I F I N L A N D 1 9 5 6 M E L B O U R N E A U S T R A L I A 1 9 6 0 R O M E I T A L Y 1 9 6 4 T O K Y O J A P A N 1 9 6 8 M E X I C O C I T Y M E X I C O 1 9 7 2 M U N I C H W E S T G E R M A N Y 1 9 7 6 M O N T R E A L Q U E B E C 1 9 8 0 M O S C O W S O V I E T U N I O N 1 9 8 4 L O S A N G E L E S C A L I F O R N I A 1 9 8 8 S E O U L S O U T H K O R E A 1 9 9 2 B A R C E L O N A S P A I N 1 9 9 6 A T L A N T A G E O R G I A 2 0 0 0 S Y D N E Y A U S T R A L I A 2 0 0 4 A T H E N S G R E E C E 2 0 0 8 B E I J I N G C H I N A 2 0 1 2 L O N D O N E N G L A N D
GOLD SILVER BRONZE AND WOOD The 1904 Olympiad was not a perfectly run event St Louis tied the Games to its own World’s Fair and held events from July to November an oddly extended schedule that contributed to low attendance by both participants and spectators Writer Charles J P Lucas bemoaned the scant participation in his book The Olympic Games 1904 St Louis noting that England and France did not send a single competitor to America and the French people showed their ingratitude by an entire absence of representation America made the Paris Games of 1900 a success and without American entries the second revival of the Games would have been a farce The Olympic gymnastics competition was representative of the larger problems of the St Louis Games as gymnasts from just three nations participated Of the 119 total participants a whopping 111 were American 7 were German and 1 was Swiss Eyser put the 118 other gymnasts in his shadow On October 29 he won all six of his medals in a single day He won the rope climb event in a great show of upper-body strength by clambering up 25 feet of rope in 7 2 seconds just edging out American Charles Krause who After the Olympic Games of 1904 Eyser ascended the same distance in 7 4 seconds Eyser also captured gold in the parallel bars and then tied American Anton Heida for first in the long horse vault Eyser’s vault was particularly impressive considering he had to pick up adequate speed on the runway to the vault while sprinting on one wooden leg Eyser also won a silver medal in the pommel horse and combined events as well as a bronze in the horizontal bar continued to compete with the American Concordia Turnverein gymnastics club which won top honors at an international competition in Germany in 1908 as well as the championship of the National Turnfest gymnastics competition in Cincinnati Ohio in 1909 From there the details of Eyser’s life grow sketchy his where abouts in the following years and the date and place of his death remain unknown His legendary Olympic performance however was evoked more than 100 years later when South African swimmer Natalie du Toit garnered fanfare by finishing 16th in the 10-kilometer swimming event in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing China despite swimming with only one leg having lost the other in a motorized scooter accident 7
