THE HERALD WRITES

Women and the olympic Games

DOUG GILLON May 12 2008
A strange thing happened 108 years ago this week. Women were allowed for the first time to compete in the modern Olympic Games. They had been excluded from the inaugural Games in 1896. So entrenched was the misogynist movement that there was no female member on the International Olympic Committee until 1981. But the IOC was not in charge of the 1900 Games, and many of the proposed events were scrapped. Only 22 women (and 975 men) from 24 countries competed in Paris, but historians disagree on many aspects.

They were held as part of the World's Fair, with 95 events over five months. These included live pigeon shooting (only for men), cricket, croquet, polo, tug of war, and rugby - all now discontinued.

Sport was very much secondary to the fair. There was no official opening ceremony, but the first competitions were on May 14. So incidental was sport that some winners went to the grave unaware that they had been Olympic champion.

Among those was Chicago socialite Margaret Abbot, who died in 1955 without realising that the nine-hole women's golf final she won in 1900 was the Olympic Games.

Margaret, 22 and 5ft 11in, had travelled to Paris with her mother, a literary editor and novelist, to study art. She was one of 10 women to enter the golf contest, and later told relatives she had won because "All the French girls apparently misunderstood the nature of the game scheduled for that day, and turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts."

Charlotte Cooper died in Helensburgh in 1966, aged 96, believing she was the first female Olympic gold medallist. She had already won three Wimbledon singles titles before she won the women's Olympic event in Paris. She also won the mixed doubles with Reginald Doherty, making her Britain's first double Olympic gold medallist.

"Chattie" Cooper won the 1898 Scottish singles title, and the last of five at Wimbledon aged 37, in 1908. Her husband, Alfred Sterry, later became president of the LTA and their daughter, Gwen, played for Britain in the Wightman Cup.

Gwen married Max Simmers (capped 28 times by Scotland at rugby). One of their sons, Brian, also played for Scotland while the other, Graeme, became chair of the R&A championship committee, and of the Scottish Sports Council.

It is suggested Charlotte was not the first female Olympic champion. Helen, Countess de Pourtales was on board the under two-ton class Swiss yacht, Lerina. It was owned (but possibly not helmed) by her husband, Hermann.

The race took place on May 24, making the countess not only the first gold medallist, but the first female Olympic competitor. But historians suggest she may not have lifted a finger.

All that assumes we discount Kyniska, daughter of King Archidamos of Sparta. She owned and bred the horses which won the chariot race at the 396 and 392 BC Olympics.

The owner, not the charioteer, won the laurel wreath. Mature women weren't even allowed to be spectators, but in defiance of prevailing custom, she was allowed to collect the trophy, thus technically becoming first female Olympic champion.

This article was posted on 12-May-2008, 07:14 by Hugh Barrow.