#FromtheArchives: The Women's Olympics
The IOC wouldn't allow women to compete in athletics. So they held their own Olympics.
Hi, friends. How are we all doing??? The Olympics has been incredible, but it’s also turned my brain into mush! Truly the only thing that’s kept me sane is the Power Plays Slack. Have you heard about it? I’m afraid I do not hype it enough. It is a Slack channel just for paid subscribers of Power Plays, where we all congregate to talk watch women’s sports and talk about women’s sports without the toxicity and terribleness that other social media platforms provide.
The Power Plays Slack1 is available to paid subscribers of Power Plays, and the good news is, right now paid subscriptions are 25% off. (The link to join the Slack will be in the welcome email you receive after becoming a subscriber.)
Also, if you’re not a paid subscriber, I will note that usually, my #FromtheArchives series is only available behind the paywall. But I’m making an exception today, because the Olympic spirit has moved me!
Okay that’s enough selling, I PROMISE.
Last month in #FromtheArchives, we looked at how women gained equality in track and field at the Olympics. But we saved one very important story for its own newsletter — the story of Frenchwoman Alice Milliat and the Women’s Olympics.
In the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, there were 65 women athletes able to compete in archery, swimming, and diving, the most in young Olympic history. But track and field was the heart of the Games, and there were no signs that the IOC was going to let women take center stage.
So Milliat, who was the founder of the International Women’s Sports Federation, decided to put pressure on the Powers That Be by staging her own event: The Women’s Olympic Games.
I started looking into Milliat and the Women’s Olympics about six weeks ago, and was so excited to learn a month ago that the brilliant Diana Moskovitz is actually writing a book about her!!!! That will be a gift to all of us, truly. Also, the New York Times did a phenomenal profile of her last month as well. So incredibly cool to see such a trailblazer — the Billie Jean King of her day, and then some — get her due.
In today’s newsletter, we’re going to look back at some fun newspaper clips and photos and archival videos I found on YouTube (!!) to just get a broad overview of what the Women’s Olympics and the trailblazing women who made what we’ve seen the past two weeks in Paris possible.
The Women’s Olympiad (1921-1924)
So, look. There are two series of events that Milliat helped organize — the Women’s Olympiad and the Women’s Olympics, which was later renamed to the Women’s World Games.
Both were organized to give women an opportunity to compete in sport and to put pressure on the IOC to include women in the official Olympic Games, and both were major drivers of progress for women’s sport. But while the Women’s Olympics were the most prominent and impactful, the Women’s Olympiad came first, and I want to give it its due.
Milliat organized the Women’s Olympiad in her role as chairwoman with the French women’s sport federation (FSFSF), with support from Camille Blank, the director of the International Sporting Club of Monaco.
In 1921, the event was held over five days in March at the International Sporting Club of Monaco, and featured about 100 participants from France, the United Kingdom, but also Italy, Norway, and Switzerland. There were track and field events, but also a basketball and gymnastics exhibition.
The event was such a success that it made Walter George, a record-setting British middle distance runner, worry that women were overdoing it.
“When you discuss the recent women's Olympiad you get me in two minds. Whilst I consider the athletic tests, in a mild form, might be beneficial to young womanhood, I fear the carrying of physical and nervous strain to excess,” George said, as reported by the Huddersfield Daily Examiner on April 5, 1921.
“We have to keep in mind the motherhood of the future, and, as a nation, to make up our minds as to whether this forcing process in women's sport, which is associated with a new mentality, is beneficial or detrimental.”
The 1922 and 1923 Women’s Olympiads also took place in Monte Carlo, and the final Women’s Olympiad took place in Stamford Bridge in London in 1924.
This video footage of the opening ceremonies and the competitions is absolutely phenomenal. It gives me chills.
CHILLS.
The Women’s Olympics (1922-1934)
In October of 2021, after the first Women’s Olympiad, Milliat helped establish the International Women’s Sports Federation and set her sights on establishing a quadrennial international women’s sports competition that would truly rival the Olympic Games.
The first Women’s Olympics were held in Paris in 1922, and featured 77 athletes from five nations competing in 11 events: 60m, 100 yards, 300m, 1000m, 4x110 yard relay, 100-yard hurdles, high jump, long jump, standing long jump, javelin, and shot put.
Most countries competing in the Women’s Olympics were in Europe, but the United States did send a delegation of athletes, or “muscled members of the so-called weaker sex” as he Standard Union in Brooklyn, New York referred to as the in news brief on August 1, 1922.
The first Women’s Olympic Games were a rousing success. Here’s an article from The Daily Telegraph on Monday, August 21, 1922, revealing that seven world records were broken at the event, which “has aroused an amount of interest which promises well for its future.”
The New York Times had a full page of photos from the historic event in their September 3, 1922 edition, and even though the quality of this digitalization is not very sharp, I think it’s still fun to look at.
Also, here is a great video from British Pathé (which is part of the Reuters historical collection) on Youtube, showing some of the competitions in Paris. I truly can’t get enough of this footage, what a treat!!
After the successful 1922 games — which were dominated by the United Kingdom — Milliat began receiving inquiries from countries in Asia and Africa about joining the next event. Here’s an article from the Park City Daily News on March 14, 1925:
The 1926 Women’s Olympics were held in Gothenburg, Sweden over three days in August, and featured 100 participants from nine nations competing in 12 events. Unfortunately, no African or South Asian nations participated, but Japan did send a delegation, which did really help boast the international credentials of the event.
In fact, Japanese athlete Kinue Hitomi was the breakout star of these games, as mentioned in this AP briefing in the Battle Creek Enquirer of Battle Creek, Michigan on September 9, 1926. She participated in almost every event and set multiple world records in both track and field.
Would you like more video? Well you’ve come to the right place!! This focuses on the British athletes, but gives a great sense of what the atmosphere was like in Sweden.
Finally, in 1928, women were allowed to compete in athletics in the official Olympics, but the only in five events, which was not satisfactory to Milliat. And so, the Women’s Olympics continued.
The 1930 edition was held over three days in Prague, and featured 200 athletes from 17 nations, and this time including exhibitions in football, basketball, handball, fencing, shooting, and canoeing. This was the first time Germany participated in the Women’s Olympics, and they almost boycotted due to a flag incident detailed in the Liverpool Daily Post on September 8, 1930.
Germany ended up winning the meet handily — except for sprinting, which was taken over by Stella Walsh, a Polish runner who lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and who deserves an entire Power Plays newsletter herself. (Iykyk)
Finally, the 1934 edition in London featured 200 athletes from 19 nations, including Palestine, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and South Africa. The biggest news from that event? Well, it was that Stella Walsh actually didn’t win everything! Käthe Krauss of Germany beat her in two events, the 100m and 200m.
Here’s a Los Angeles Times article from August 12, 1934:
Milliat initially planned to host a 1938 Women’s Olympics, but there was progress in expanding events for women at major competitions so the games were dissolved. In 1938, women could compete in nine athletics events at the European Championships. After that, the war stopped major sporting competitions, including the European Championships and Olympics, for almost a decade.
I imagine Milliat would be fucking furious if she found out that gender parity in sports was still a work in progress in 2024, but thanks to her, we’ve come a really long way, especially at the Olympics, and will keep the fight going. (More on that what exactly that fight entails in next week’s Power Plays.)
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