When artists, writers and architects were in the running for Olympic medals

The Games once included competitive arts in categories such as architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture

Jean Jacoby's Rugby was awarded the gold medal in the 1928 Olympic art competitions, Photo: Wikipedia

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Almost three decades after becoming the first swimming champion of the modern Olympics, Alfred Hajos arrived at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris ready to compete again.

The Hungarian athlete had won two gold medals at the 1896 inaugural event in Athens. A sporting legend in his time, Hajos had proved his mettle not just as a swimmer, but as a sprinter and footballer. Nevertheless, it may have seemed strange that he was returning to the Olympics in 1924. He was 46 and well beyond his prime sporting years.

However, this time Hajos was not competing as a swimmer, but as an architect.

The arts were once part of the Olympics Games. Competitions took place across categories including architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. The competing works addressed sport-related themes and were rooted in the spirit of the Games.

As in any Olympic event, winners ascended the podium and were granted medals. However, perhaps due to the subjectivity involved, judges sometimes could not agree on who to award medals to. For instance, when Hajos competed, presenting a design for a stadium alongside fellow Hungarian sportsman and architect Dezso Lauber, he was awarded the silver medal. Monaco architect Julien Medecin won the bronze for another stadium design. However, no gold medals were awarded in the category that year.

Today, it may seem strange that the arts was a competitive realm in the Olympics, but it was not always so.

When Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894, the French educator sought to revive the event according to its original tenets. The ancient Olympic Games brought together athletes, artists, philosophers and all kinds of performers. It was conceived as a spectacle where human achievements across many forms were presented to the Greek gods, specifically Zeus. The arts were a pillar of that presentation.

Nevertheless, arts competitions were not part of the Olympics when the modern iteration was established at the turn of the 20th century, but De Coubertin was determined to include them. He felt the Olympics were incomplete without that component.

“The time has come to take the next step, and to restore the Olympiad to its original beauty,” he wrote in 1904. “In the high times of Olympia, the fine arts were combined harmoniously with the Olympic Games to create their glory. This is to become reality once again.”

De Coubertin argued in favour of including arts competitions at the Olympic Congress of 1906. But there was not enough time to incorporate them in the 1908 event in London.

Although Stockholm was chosen as the host city for the 1912 Olympics, there were concerns about how the arts would be evaluated in this new Olympic context. Nevertheless, De Coubertin’s idea was adopted. Those Olympics were the first time arts competitions were held in the reimagining of the ancient event. The rules stipulated that competing works would mark their debut at the Olympics and that they would be dedicated, in some form, to sports.

More than 30 people participated in the competition. De Coubertin himself took part in the literature category. His poem Ode to Sport was awarded the gold medal. Reading his poem, it becomes somewhat clear why De Coubertin insisted on including the arts in the Olympics, as a way to express the importance of sports to the human race.

“O Sport, you are Justice!” he wrote. “The perfect equity for which men strive in vain in their social institutions is your constant companion.”

Arts would become a mainstay in the Olympic Games until 1948.

Besides Hajos, there was also one other person who won medals for in both sports and the arts. US marksman Walter Winans won gold in the 1908 Olympics and again in the 1912 games as a sculptor.

Luxembourg painter Jean Jacoby was the most successful artist to take part. The artist won the gold medal twice, once for his 1924 painting Etude de Sport, and another for his 1928 drawing Rugby. Danish author Josef Petersen was another top contender, winning the silver medal three times.

However, in its short history, only one woman has won an Olympic medal for arts. Finnish poet Aale Tynni took home the gold in the literature category during the 1948 Summer Olympics in London – the last time the games hosted the competition. Tynni won for her poem Laurel of Hellas.

As far as countries are concerned, Germany was the top achiever in the competitions. It won a total of 24 medals, half from the 1936 Games in Berlin. Italy was the second country to win the most medals in arts, with 14. While records of the arts competitions and their winners survive today, many of the participating works have been lost.

In 1948, the IOC decided to jettison the arts competitions from the Games. Throughout most of the 20th century, only amateur athletes were allowed to participate, and as the participating creatives were professionals, the committee reasoned that it went against the central tenets of the Olympics. There was an attempt to reintroduce the event in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, but the idea never came to fruition.

While the arts no longer have a competitive space in the Olympics, its legacy of creativity endures. The Cultural Olympiad was incorporated in the event as a non-competitive feature in 1956. Much like the games, it addresses that intersection between sports and arts. It includes exhibitions, performances and other artistic events. This year, the programme is running in Paris until September 8, well after the Olympic Games conclude on August 11.

“Sport and culture are sometimes pitted against each other,” French canoeist Tony Estanguet says on the 2024 Olympics website. “But I think they have a lot in common: performance, emotions, the quest for beauty of movement, but also, and above all, their ability to offer a diversity of disciplines that are all unique channels of expression for building oneself up, emancipating oneself, finding one's path, feeling good.”

While artists may not be in the running for Olympics medals today, the arts are still very present in the Games, through graphic design, music performances and, of course, the Cultural Olympiad.

In that sense, while de Coubertin may have rejected the IOC’s decision to remove arts competitions from the Olympics if he were alive (he died in 1937), the French baron may have been contented by knowing his aim of incorporating creativity into the Games has lived on through materialising in other forms.