Dusseldorf: Olympic athletes competing for gold medals in a world reeling from a pandemic? It won’t be the first time.
A century before the Tokyo Games were postponed because of coronavirus, the Olympics were held in the Belgian city of Antwerp following the Spanish flu pandemic. The 1920 Games were meant to symbolize a recovery from World War I, not a health crisis. Belgium, a battleground for the opposing powers, was the host country and the five rings of the Olympic flag flew at an opening ceremony for the first time. “They released doves, although these were not necessarily doves of peace, because these were doves which had served in the war and they were released by military men,” Roland Renson, a Belgian sports historian, told The Associated Press.
Both the pandemic and the war were epitomized by Aileen Riggin, a 14-year-old American diver who won a gold medal. Riggin first took up competitive swimming after becoming sick with the Spanish flu, and she went on a tour of a World War I battlefield after winning gold in the 3-meter springboard. She took a German helmet and some bullets as souvenirs, but got a shock when she examined one of the many boots lying in the churned-up mud. “I picked up one that had a foot in it, so I dropped it in a hurry,” she recalled later. The coronavirus has blocked Antwerp’s attempt to mark the centenary. A ceremony in March due to feature the King of Belgium and the president of the International Olympic Committee was canceled. Despite taking place in the wake of a major war, reconciliation at the Antwerp Olympics had its limits. Germany and its wartime allies didn’t compete, nor did Bolshevik-controlled Russia. They weren’t officially banned, simply not invited. One Swedish figure skater (then in the Summer Olympics before the Winter Games started in 1924) was reportedly forbidden from performing to German music.
There were financial problems, too. Ingenious shortcuts like making a pool from a ditch in the city fortifications — Riggin and other athletes hated the cold, dark water — helped keep costs down, but the Belgian organizing committee still lost money and left behind unpaid debt. “Antwerp has never cherished its Olympic heritage because of the debacle,” Renson said. The postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021 is estimated to cost Japan at least $2 billion.
The Spanish flu swept around the world from 1918 until early 1920, killing an estimated 50 million people, though war and poverty made a precise count impossible.
Older people make up a large share of the coronavirus death toll, but the Spanish flu was a particular threat to younger people. That included the soldiers gathered in often squalid conditions as WWI ended. The flu-infected troops in France and Belgium and then hitched a ride when they were demobilized.
Parties to welcome soldiers home became infection hot spots. Seven Olympic athletes are believed to have died from the Spanish flu, according to records provided by Olympic historian and physician Bill Mallon.
They include three WWI veterans as well as Martin Sheridan, a New York policeman who was born in Ireland and won gold medals for the United States in the discus and shot put over multiple early Olympics. (AP)
