Five... things about London's 1908 Olympics

Including the sport where Britain took all three medals

Hi and welcome to your Monday newsletter, and sorry for the day’s delay in sending it…

Britain’s Sybil Newall winning the women’s archery at the 1908 Olympics, image by Roger Nolan, Creative Commons

This edition’s a handful of facts about London’s Olympics in the summer of 1908 — the fourth iteration of the modern Olympic Games (if you don’t count the 1906 Intercalated Games) after Athens (1896), Paris (1900), and St Louis (1904).

---

From Eternal City to White City

White City Stadium, image by Le Miroir des Sports, public domain

The Games were actually supposed to be in Rome that cycle. The city had been one of four bidding to host the 1908 Olympics, edging out London, Berlin and Milan. But the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906 changed that, wreaking destruction and death on Naples; funds were diverted to the rebuilding efforts and the Olympics were diverted to London — to White City in west London, where a 68,000 person stadium was quickly built.

A marathon, not a sprint