The Olympic Paradox

On July 6, 1912, thousands of athletes, journalists, and spectators flooded into Stockholm Olympic Stadium for the games’s opening ceremonies.¹ Applauded by contemporaries as a critical success, the Stockholm Olympics fulfilled the aspirations of International Olympic Committee (IOC) founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin. When the 1912 Games came to an end just over two weeks later on July 22, Coubertin toasted to the next competition, to be held in Berlin in 1916: “May it be prepared in the fruitful labor of peaceful times. May it be celebrated, when the day comes, by all the peoples of the world in gladness and concord!”²

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee (Wikimedia Commons)

As we know, Coubertin’s toast was not meant to be. By 1916, the First World War had broken out and spread havoc over great parts of Europe. German officials eventually cancelled the 1916 Berlin Games, giving the 1912 Olympic Games a unique distinction: the first Games with no immediate successor (Berlin 1936, and until now, Rio 2016, are the only two to share this status). How did the spirit of internationalism decline so rapidly between 1912 and 1916?

The Olympics relies on the confluence of two antithetical forces: nationalism and internationalism. As historian Richard Mandell wrote, Coubertin’s quasi-religious theories, which serve as the foundation of the IOC, are the belief that “the mixing of patriotism and competition will somehow further universal peace.”³ The 1912 Games were no exception; competing countries recognized the vast potential to project national strength on an international stage. Not only were numerous foreign dignitaries in attendance at the event, but the international press came in a flurry, their numbers swelling from 11 reporters in Athens in 1896 to 444 in Stockholm in 1912.⁴ Unexpected triumphs, like the narrow victory of Finland’s Hannes Kolehmainen in the 5000-meter race could run a country onto the world map.⁵ Losses, conversely, devastated national image: “Even the earth seemed to crumble when London’s invincible [team] was beaten in the Tug-of-War,” H. Perry Robinson wrote in London’s The Times. “It was totally unexpected.”⁶

Opening ceremony of the 1912 Olympics (Wikimedia Commons)

While the all-too-familiar daily medal counts of today’s Olympics make this paradox obvious, the 1912 Olympic tallies were further complicated by the question of who the winning medals belonged to: country or empire?

In some cases, this was quickly resolved. While the British media embraced its empire and celebrated the victories of the dominions when English athletes gave a lackluster performance, the Swedish Organizing Committee offered individual distinction to Canada, South Africa, and Australasia (the combined team name for Australia and New Zealand at early Olympic Games) despite their dominion status. Iceland, however, did not receive an invitation and competed under the Danish flag.⁷

Other debates threatened to transform the persistent flame of nationalism into full-blown catastrophes. Austria-Hungary, then a dual monarchy competing under two flags, suppressed potential division. Recognizing the political dangers of entering the foray of national identity, Sigfrid Edström of the Swedish Olympic Committee wrote: “Austria alone is said to consist of 17 different nations. Where would we end up if each of these wanted to perform as a separate nation?”⁸ The Bohemian Olympic Committee (located in what is now part of the Czech Republic) attempted to appeal a decision which rendered their country secondary to the Austrians, but a boycott threat by the Imperial Chancellery in Vienna squashed any nationalist hopes. At risk of losing all of Austria-Hungary, the Swedes allowed imperialism to triumph over the revolutionary nationalism of the Bohemians: “Bohemia” would be placed in a smaller print and the athletes would follow the Austrians.⁹

Map of the world in 1914, showing countries and their colonies and territories (Wikimedia Commons)

​​In St. Petersburg, another storm brewed: the representation of Finland at the Olympic Games.¹⁰ From 1809 to 1917, Finland held political autonomy as a Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire. At the 1908 Olympics, Finland competed as a “sporting nation,” invoking a unique IOC rule to participate without attention to political sovereignty. In 1912, however, the Russians echoed the Austro-Hungarian strategy by contacting Swedish officials and demanding the removal of Finland from the Olympic program.¹¹

Unlike the quick resolution of the Bohemian matter, Swedes held greater sympathy for the Finnish cause. Prior to 1809, Finland had been part of Sweden for 700 years; many citizens resented what they viewed as tyranny under the Russian Empire. As tensions escalated in the correspondence between the Russians and Swedes (with the Swedish Crown Prince intervening on Finland’s behalf), Coubertin stepped in to offer a compromise. By virtue of Czar Nicholas II’s title “Duke of Finland,” Coubertin reasoned, Finland enjoyed a status “differing from those of lesser autonomy.” After continued negotiations, Russia allowed Finland to be placed in a smaller font on the program on the condition that its athletes, when victorious, stood under the Russian flag.¹²

Diplomatic discussions like these engulfed the official program — and the list of countries which would or would not receive recognition — for months in advance of the opening ceremonies. The athletes, however, could not be controlled in the same way. Finnish nationalism persisted as the country’s athletes unveiled the blue and white flag of the Helsinki Women’s Gymnastic Club when they entered behind the Russian team. The language of the flag wasn’t political: “Mens sana in corpore sano,” which translates to “A healthy mind in a healthy body.” Instead, the Russian officials at the Games were infuriated both by the breach in protocol and the colors of the flag, as blue and white were the colors of Finland’s separatist flag. It is unclear who physically removed the flag as the Finnish athletes entered the Stadium — there are conflicting newspaper reports of the responsible party being either a police officer or Swedish official —  but the offending item and the woman carrying it were gone by the time Finland passed the royal spectator box of Swedish monarchs and other national representatives as well as IOC officials.¹³

Even without their flag, the Finnish athletes continued with their opening ceremony protests. As the athletes completed a lap around the stadium to pass in front of the royal box, the Finnish team “momentarily stopped to increase their distance behind the Russian team.” The Finnish team leaders, Ivar Wilskman and Gustaf “Gosta” Wasenius, ordered the group to take short steps, which led to Finland passing the royal box almost 75 meters (246 feet) behind the Russians.¹⁴ With this distance, the Finns appeared as a separate country and were photographed as such in The Official Report of the Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912.

The Finnish team at the opening ceremony of the 1912 Summer Olympics (Wikimedia Commons)

As the Finns passed the main grandstand, the band unexpectedly, and apparently spontaneously, struck up “Hakkapeliittain Marssi,” a military march composed during the Thirty Years’ War and associated with both the Swedish and Finnish cavalry.¹⁵ The use of a march from an era of Swedish-Finnish unificiation, particularly one with military connotations, outraged Russian officials. Workers in the stadium only served to exacerbate these tensions as a Swedish Olympic worker directed the Russian team to the first exit and sent the Finns to the next exit, allowing the belligerent kingdom to enjoy a longer march around the stadium in isolation, for which they received another round of applause.¹⁶

Beyond the cheering audience of thousands in Stockholm, the incident spread around the world and Finnish newspapers noted with satisfaction that their team had been well received in Stockholm.¹⁷ In the immediate aftermath of the opening ceremony, Swedish organizers rushed to apologize to the Russian government, but the damage was already done.¹⁸ In addition to the rebellion of the opening ceremony, the Finns outshined the Russians, ranking fourth among countries overall with 26 medals while their parent country won only five. Finnish athlete and activist Lauri Pihkala credited Olympic success in 1912 for giving a “decisive boost” to the Finnish independence movement.¹⁹

Exhausted by the diplomatic controversies created by imperial demands, the IOC revoked Finland and Bohemia’s special statuses in June 1914. This was much to the displeasure of Coubertin, who protested that the Olympics were becoming an “affair of State.”²⁰ Coubertin later wrote, “Had I been free to do so, I would have given a place of their own not only to Bohemia and Finland but also to Poland and Ireland.”²¹ ​​In 1916, Finnish and Bohemian athletes would only be allowed to participate if they did so as part of their respective empires. Due to the outbreak of the First World War, the athletes did not need to make that decision. In Antwerp in 1920, Finland participated as a newly independent country and the Bohemians participated as citizens of the recently founded country of Czechoslovakia.²²

At first glance, World War I provides a dividing line between the age of empires and the Olympics of today. The Olympic paradox, however, is still kicking, having survived over a century since 1912’s Stockholm games. The flags flying overhead in Olympic venues continue to symbolize years of institutional rulemaking and political maneuvering. American territories, including Guam and Puerto Rico, compete independently.²³ Russian doping schemes led to the current ban on the use of the Russian flag or anthem at the Games while the unified teams of North and South Korea at Pyeongchang 2018 served as a catalyst for renewed peace talks.²⁴ A recent Taipei Times editorial critiqued the limitations placed on Taiwan’s representation at the Olympics (the country competes under the name “Chinese Taipei” with an IOC flag).²⁵ Political protests within the stadium also continue to be relevant with the implementation of new IOC rules in July 2021 loosening restrictions on freedom of expression at the Games but forbidding demonstrations during the opening ceremonies (like those done by the Finns).²⁶ The Olympic paradox didn’t die in 1912; it is alive and well. As Swedish poet Bertil Malmberg wrote at the conclusion of the Fifth Olympiad:

The world’s a racing track
And has so been through centuries.
And nobody can count or even guess
The number of defeats, or victories.²⁷

1912 Olympic poster stamp (Creative Commons)

1. Swedish Olympic Committee, The Official Report of the Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912, ed. by Erik Bergvall, trans. by Edward Adams-Ray, (Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1913), 307.
2. Pierre de Coubertin, Olympism: Selected Writings (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee, 2000), 448.
3. Richard D. Mandell, The First Modern Olympics, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 72.
4. Jules Boykoff, “Media and the Olympics,” in Activism and the Olympics: Dissent at the Games in Vancouver and London, 129-58, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2014)
5. “Athletes and wrestlers brought victories and international visibility to Finland at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.” Svinhufvud. The Helsinki Finnish Club. 2017. Accessed April 9, 2020.
6. Tug-of-War was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1920. H. Perry Robinson, “The Olympic Games. American Successes.” The Times, July 3, 1912. The Times Digital Archives.
7. ​​Åke Sigvard Jönsson, Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, trans. Alan Crozier (Stockholm: Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande, 2012), 243-246. Iceland had gained home rule only eight years before the Fifth Olympiad and existed in personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark.  On December 11, 1911, the Organizing Committee read a letter from the Danish Olympic Committee on the matter: “since Icelandic athletes belong to the Danish nation it is totally out of the question that Iceland could take part as an independent nation at the 1912 Olympic Games.”
8. Letter from Sigfrid Edström to the Swedish Olympic Office. 9 Feb 1911. Reference A I k: Volume 1.  K. Volume 9. Stockholms-Olympiaden 1912, Riksarkivet, Swedish National Archives. Jonsson, Åke. Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, trans. Alan Crozier. Stockholm: Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande, 2012, 240.
9. Jönsson, Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, 241.
10. Jönsson, Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, 241.
11. Pierre de Coubertin, “The Fifth Olympiad” in Olympism: Selected Writings, (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee, 2000), 436-437.
12. Coubertin, “The Fifth Olympiad,” 437.
13. Jönsson, Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, 431.
14. Bill Mallon and Ture Widlund, The 1912 Olympic Games: Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary. (Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc., 2002), 9.
15. Mats Hellspong, “Spectators and the Stockholm Games,” in The 1912 Stockholm Olympics: Essays on the Competition, the People, the City, ed. by Leif Yttergren and Hans Bolling, (Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland & Company, Inc. 2012), 154-173.
16. Jönsson, Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, 431.
17. Hellspong, “Spectators and the Stockholm Games,” 154.
18. Jönsson, Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, 431.
19. “Athletes and wrestlers brought victories and international visibility to Finland at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.”
20. Pierre de Coubertin, “The Fifth Olympiad,” 436.
21. Pierre de Coubertin, “The Fifth Olympiad,” 437.
22. “Athletes and wrestlers brought victories and international visibility to Finland at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.”
23. Michael McCann, “Why the IOC considers Puerto Rico as its own country in the Olympics,” Sports Illustrated, August 6, 2016.
24. Sammy Westfall, “Here’s why you won’t find the Russian flag or national anthem at this year’s Olympics.” The Washington Post, July 6, 2021; Chloe Sang-Hun, “North and South Korean Teams to March as One at Olympics,” New York Times, January 17, 2018.
25. Lindell Lucy, “Olympic hosts should back Taiwan,” Taipei Times, July 6, 2021.
26. Matthew Futternman, “She Protested on a Medal Podium. Will the Olympics Ban That?” New York Times, July 6, 2021.
27. Jonsson, Guide to the Sunshine Olympiad, 423-426.

Kathrine Esten

Kathrine Esten is a public historian who focuses on the relationship between cultural movements and policy development. She recently completed a master's degree in public policy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.