1908 Summer Olympics / Rugby

Rugby at the IV Olympic Games
information
venue	London
Competition venue	White City Stadium
Nations	2
Athletes	30 (30 men)
date	October 26, 1908
decisions	1
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At the IV Olympic Games in London in 1908 , a rugby competition was held in the form of rugby union . The venue for the only game was the White City Stadium . There, Australia won the Olympic gold medal by beating England's selection from Cornwall . The third registered team France withdrew at short notice, so that there were only two places.

Remarks

All four British national teams were invited to the tournament. Only England reported a team, while Wales, Ireland and Scotland did not respond to the invitation. Of the three Dominions invited , New Zealand and South Africa declined to participate, while Australia accepted the competition. The French, who were also registered for the tournament, withdrew shortly before the start.

The Australian team was in 1908/09 for the first time ever on a longer European tour and proved to be superior. They won 25 out of 31 games, plus five were drawn. Among other things, they had defeated the team from Cornwall with 18: 5 and the English national team with 9: 3. On the other hand, the English Rugby Football Union could not muster the national team due to organizational difficulties, as many regular players were ironically on a tour through Australia and New Zealand and a letter with the request to return early reached them too late. The reigning country champion, the Cornwall selection, was set up as a replacement.

The only Olympic game took place on October 19th. The Australians fully lived up to their role as favorites and clearly beat the English with 32: 3. After the return of the Australians, 14 members of the squad, including the captain of the Olympic final Chris McKivat , played a demonstration game against the Australian national rugby league team , the Kangaroos . Because they had been paid for it, all 14 were excluded from the then pure amateur rugby union code and switched to the rugby league code .

Medalist

space	country	player
1	ANZ	John Barnett , Bede Smith , Phillip Carmichael , Dan Carroll , Robert Craig , Thomas Griffen , John Hickey , Malcom McArthur , Arthur McCabe , Patrick McCue , Chris McKivat , Charles McMurtrie , Sydney Middleton , Tom Richards , Charles Russell
2	GBR	James Davey , Frederick Dean , Edward Jackett , Richard Jackett , EJ Jones , James Jose , A. Lawry , Charles Marshall , Barney Solomon , Bertram Solomon , Nicholas Tregurtha , John Trevaskis , Thomas Wedge , A. Wilcocks , Arthur Wilson

Web links

• Rugby at the Olympic Games 1908 in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Official report of the Olympic Games 1908 (PDF, 12.4 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Ian Buchanan: Rugby Fotball at the Olympic Games , In: Journal of Olympic History , Vol. 1, No 1, Spring 1997, pp. 12ff, pp. 12f ( pdf ).
2. ↑ Chris Cunneen: McKivat, Christopher Hobart (1879-1941). In: Australian Dictionary of Biography , Online Edition. Australian National University , 1986, accessed September 4, 2009 (Digitized 2006; ISSN  1833-7538 ).