• Amsterdam 1928

Amsterdam 1928 - Quick Hits

The great Paavo Nurmi took gold in the 3000m © PA Photos

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Triple tally
At the age of 42, Lucien Gaudin of France won gold in the foil (fencing) competition for the third time. His team-mates celebrated by carrying him on their shoulders.

Canadian hero
Virtually unknown 20-year-old Canadian Percy Williams stunned the track and field world by taking gold in the 100-metres and 200-metres. He established a world record of 10.3 seconds in the 100-yard dash two years later.

Pagan protest
Queen Wilhelmina of Netherlands refused to appear at the opening or closing ceremonies because she considered the Games to be tantamount to a pagan festival.

Lodging decisions
There was no Olympic village, but the IOC provided the competitors with barracks and sleeping bags. Some slept in schools. The American delegation had another plan - the team stayed on two boats that were docked in Amsterdam's port. This turned out to be a bad decision because cargo had to be unloaded and reloaded throughout the night.

General
The head of the US delegation was Douglas MacArthur, who later was head of the American armed forces in the Pacific during World War II.

Double fault
Suspicious of professionalism, the IOC decided to take tennis off the Olympic programme. Tennis did not make an Olympic appearance again until the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Football crazy
Uruguay, under the leadership of Jose Leandro Andrade, won the gold medal in football for the second straight time. The Uruguayan team later won the first-ever World Cup in 1930.

Controversy
Several Olympians collapsed because of exhaustion in the first-ever women's 800-metre race, which was won by Germany's Karoline "Lina" Radke. Women did not run races longer than 200 meters until 1960.

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