1924 Paris Olympics: Hollywood actor Johnny Weissmuller won 3 golds

• Shubham
• 17 July, 2021

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By: Shubham Ghosh

THE Tokyo Olympics is less than a week away and sports-lovers from across the world are eagerly waiting for the greatest show on earth to start even though the planet is currently witnessing a pandemic.

Here we look at some of the past games. Today we look at the 1924 edition which was held in the French capital of Paris (second time after 1900). The US finished at the top of the medal tally with 99, including 45 golds, while Finland finished a distant second with 37 medals, including 14 gold. Paris will host the Olympic Games in 2024, marking the centenary of the 1924 edition.

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Here are some highlights and fun facts from the 1924 Olympics:

• It was the second time Paris hosted the Games and became the first city to host the Olympics twice.
• More than 3,000 athletes, including over 100 women, represented a record 44 countries in this edition.
• The Games were attended by over 1,000 journalists.

  

• It was at the 1924 edition that the Games’ closing ceremony was introduced, as we know today, involving the raising of three flags — the flag of the International Olympic Committee, the flag of the host nation (France) and the flag of the next host nation (the Netherlands).
• The Olympic motto ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius‘ (Faster, Higher, Stronger) was used for the first time at the Olympics.
• British runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell won the 100-metre and the 400-metre events, respectively. Liddell refused to compete in the 100-metre run because it was held on a Sunday and he was a devout Christian. Their stories were depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.
• It marked the first time that the athletes were kept in an Olympic Village, which was then a group of wood cabins.
• American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, known for playing the titular role of Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932 version), won three golds at the Games.
• The distance of the marathon run was fixed at 42.195 km in this Olympic.
• Ireland made its first appearance in the 1924 Olympic Games as an independent nation.