1900 Summer Olympics / Polo

Polo at the II Olympic Games
information
venue	Paris
Competition venue	Parc de Bagatelle
Nations	4th
Athletes	20 (20 men)
date	May 28 - June 9, 1900
decisions	1
London 1908 →

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 Exhibition ( Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris ) also included a tournament for polo , which was part of the 1900 Summer Olympics ( Games of the II Olympiad) was.

Remarks

Polo was once a highly respected sport, especially in the upper class and among the aristocracy, and for that reason had Olympic ideals. The tournament assigned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to the Olympic program of the Games of the II Olympiad was not the only one that was held as part of the World Exhibition. There were a total of eight tournaments, for each of which a separate price was advertised, and in which different players or clubs participated several times. The IOC names the tournament for the Grand prix international de l'exposition as the only Olympic competition .

Scene from a polo game with the Bagatelle Polo Club de Paris

At that time, team competitions were generally advertised as competitions between club or association teams. In international competitions, they usually represented the country in which the club or association was based. It was not seen as a hindrance if players of other nationalities were also represented in a club. This was particularly true of the polo clubs.

Five clubs took part in the tournament, which is considered to be Olympic by the IOC . The two British clubs had players from the United States and Spain in their ranks, while one of the two French clubs had a British player. In the early days of the Olympic Games, however, no one had thought of a nation ranking or a medal table. This means that the IOC nowadays evaluates a number of teams with players of different nationalities separately as mixed teams . This also includes the winners and places of the Olympic polo tournament of 1900. There are publications in which this is viewed differently, and where the placement is recognized for each nation, or is only assigned to the nation in which the club was based. The statistics and the medal table have changed accordingly.

The tournament took place between May 28th and June 9th. The venue was a facility in the Parc de Bagatelle of the polo association Société du Polo de Paris, which is based there . First there was a qualifier on May 28th, in which the British / US team of the Foxhunters Hurlingham defeated the all-French team of the Compiègne Polo Club 10-0. The player Maurice Raoul-Duval then played in the team of the Bagatelle Polo Club de Paris .

Originally a team from Germany , that of the Polo Club Hamburg, also registered . However, participation was canceled by telegram because a player was ill.

Classification

space	country	player
1	XXZ	Foxhunters Hurlingham John Beresford ( ) Dennis Daly ( ) Foxhall Keene ( ) Frank Mackey ( ) Alfred Rawlinson ( )
2	XXZ	Polo Club Rugby Walter Buckmaster ( ) Frederick Freake ( ) Walter McCreery ( ) José de Madre ( )
3	XXZ	Bagatelle Polo Club de Paris Robert Fournier-Sarlovèze ( ) Frederick Agnew Gill ( ) Maurice Raoul-Duval ( ) Édouard Alphonse James de Rothschild ( )
3	MEX	Team North America Eustaquio de Escandon Pablo de Escandon Manuel de Villavieja Escandon Guilermo Wright

Semi-finals on May 31:
Foxhunters Hurlingham vs. Bagatelle Polo Club de Paris 6: 4
Polo Club Rugby vs. Team North America (Mexico) 8-0

Final on June 9th:
Foxhunters Hurlingham vs. Polo Club Rugby 3: 1

There was no match for third place, so both losers in the semi-finals were included in the ranking for third place.

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

Commons : Polo at the 1900 Summer Olympics  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

• 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)