London Olympics 1908

So the Olympics is over for another four years, and Britain has done incredibly well. The best its done, in fact, since 1908 when the Olympics first came to London.

Of course, it was a very different games back then. For a start, commercial air travel did not start until 1914, so all the athletes would have had to arrive by boat. For some athletes, this would have meant giving up a week in travel time before the games even started, so naturally Britain dominated the field, with 300 of the 445 competitors being British.

The events on offer were very different as well, from the mundane tug of war to the prosaic pistol duelling, where contestant shot wax bullets at each other while wearing improvised armour.

Rules had also yet to be standardised, and controversy reigned when the British officials ruled that the US winner of the 400m had interfered with one of the British runners and should be disqualified. Unfortunately, no one had thought to agree up front what constituted interference and, when the British officials proposed re-running the race to settle the matter, all three of the US competitors refused to take part. Since there were only four competitors to begin with, the British runner was forced to take part in a solo race, where he easily took first place.

Don't think that all the events were archaic though. Despite being over a century ago, power boating was featured with three separate classes of event. The boats were classics of engineering, and the events were a chance to display the power and reliability that characterised the Victorian industrial age. Unfortunately, in each event, all but one boat were forced to abandon the race, meaning the winners were given medals merely for the honour of not sinking. This was the last time the event was featured in the Olympic games, since it was considered that the use of mechanical equipment gave the competitors an unfair advantage.

It was a good year for Britain, though, with a haul of 147 medals, not all of which were awarded simply for turning up. More importantly, it launched the Olympics as a truly international event, fostering a spirit of international brotherhood through sport that has lasted to this day. Roll on 2020. I'm convinced that Japan will do amazing job. In fact, there's only one thing they could do that would top it for me. Please, please, please bring back the tug of war. Or better still, introduce Olympic hopscotch.