1900 Summer Olympics / Water polo

Water polo at the II Summer Olympic Games
information
Attendees:	53 athletes
Date:	August 11th - August 12th
Venue:	His
Competition location:	Asnières-sur-Seine
Decisions:	1
	St. Louis 1904 →

Summer Olympics 1900 (medal table water polo)
space	team			3.	Total
1	Great Britain	1	-	-	1
2	Belgium	-	1	-	1
3	France	-	-	2	2

The international competitions for physical exercise and sport (Concours Internationaux d'Exercices Physiques et de Sports) held in the French capital Paris as part of the World's Fair ( Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris ) also included a competition in water polo , which was part of the 1900 Summer Olympics ( Games of the II Olympiad) was.

At that time, water polo was still a developing sport that was not yet recognized as an independent sport by most swimming clubs and associations, with the exception of the British federation. So it was not surprising that the teams consisted mainly of swimmers who only played the water polo game on the side. The Olympic water polo tournament recognized by the IOC was therefore only seen as another discipline of swimming competitions at the time.

Water polo in Paris 1900

All of the team competitions at the World Exhibition were not intended to be national competitions, but instead were advertised for club or association teams that usually represented the country in which the club or association was based in international competitions. It was not seen as a hindrance if athletes of other nationalities were represented in a club. The substitution of players was also not subject to any clear rules, so that the number of players participating in the various teams is still controversial among sports historians. The IOC officially assigned 7 players by name to each team, but in fact 58 players were involved or at least reported.

In contrast to the other team competitions, in which the individual games were viewed as equivalent, water polo was a tournament . 7 teams took part. All games were played on two days, August 11th and 12th, in open water in a flood basin of the Seine near Asnières-sur-Seine .

Men

space	country	Athletes
1	GBR	Osborne Swimming Club Manchester Thomas Coe , John Derbyshire , Peter Kemp , William Lister , Arthur Robertson , Eric Robinson , George Wilkinson
2	BEL	Club de Natation de Bruxelles Jean de Backer , Victor de Behr , Henri Cohen , Fernand Feyaerts , Oscar Grégoire , Albert Michant , Victor Sonnemans
3	FRA	Libelulle de Paris Thomas W. Burgess ( ) , Jules Clévenot , Alphonse Decuyper , Louis Laufray , Henri Peslier , Pesloy , Paul Vasseur
3	FRA	Pupilles de Neptune de Lille Eugène Coulon , Fardelle , Favier , Leriche , Louis Martin , Désiré Merchez , Charles Treffel

Date: Aug 11 and 12.08.

In addition to the five British and three Belgian players who are not listed by the IOC, four other French players not listed by the IOC were also involved.

19 players (14 French, three German and one British) also took part in the swimming competitions. Six other swimmers (two French and four British) were also in the line-up of the water polo teams, but it is uncertain whether these were actually used. This also includes John Arthur Jarvis , who is therefore only included in the list of winners with his two wins in swimming. The Briton Peter Kemp and the two Frenchmen Louis Martin and Désiré Merchez are the only ones who could officially become medalists in both competitions .

Two teams took part for the French club Pupilles de Neptune de Lille , with the players Favier, Leriche and Charles Treffel being used in both teams.

	Quarter finals				Semifinals				final
	Great Britain (Osborne Swimming Club Manchester)	12
	France (Tritons Lilloise)	0
					Great Britain (Osborne Swimming Club Manchester)	10
					France (Pupilles de Neptune de Lille II)	1
	France (Pupilles de Neptune de Lille II)	3
	German Reich (Berlin Swimming Club)	2
									Great Britain (Osborne Swimming Club Manchester)	7th
									Belgium (Club de Natation de Bruxelles)	2
	Belgium (Club de Natation de Bruxelles)	2
	France (Pupilles de Neptune de Lille I)	0
					Belgium (Club de Natation de Bruxelles)	5
					France (Libelulle de Paris)	1
	France (Libelulle de Paris)
	bye

In the early days of the Olympic Games, nobody had thought of a nation ranking or a medal table. As a rule, this means that teams with athletes of different nationalities are rated as mixed teams by the IOC . When placing the water polo team of Libelulle de Paris , in whose ranks the Briton Thomas W. Burgess participated, the IOC failed to do so because he was incorrectly listed as a French. Burgess was a well-known canal swimmer and therefore regularly stayed in France for a long time and was a member of the aforementioned Paris swimming club. There are certainly publications with historically correct facts, and the statistics and medal table have changed accordingly.

literature

• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. The Chronicle I. Athens 1896 - Berlin 1936. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-328-00715-6 .
• Karl Lennartz , Walter Teutenberg: II. Olympic Games 1900 in Paris. Presentation and sources. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1995, ISBN 3-928562-20-7 .
• Bill Mallon : The 1900 Olympic Games . McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina 1998, CIP 97-36094.

Web links

• Side of the IOC to the Summer Games in 1900 (English)
• Official report (French, PDF, 3 parts in total; 8.10 MB)
• Page about all Olympic participants by Herman de Wael (English)