4. Olympic Summer Games
Olympic Medals in the games of 1908 in London
306 Medals in 19 Sports in 101 Events
The 1908 Olympic Games were held in parallel with the Franco-British Exhibition, a large international exhibition organized by Great Britain and France, over a period of 6 months. 1900 and 1904 the games were insignificant additions to the respective world exhibitions. In 1908 it was different, there were excellent sports facilities, better organized games and even figure skating was carried out in a specially built artificial ice hall.
The White City Stadium was designed for several sports. It had space for over 66,000 spectators, including 20,000 covered. The spectators formed the outermost ring of the stadium, inside it was a concrete ring over 600m long with elevated curves on which the bicycle races were carried out, the inner ring was a 536m long ash track for the athletics running competitions. The jumping and throwing competitions were held on the central field, but it was also a playing field for ball sports. On the inner field there was for the first time a swimming pool with 4 lanes and a length of 100m for the swimming competitions and even a retractable diving platform for diving.
The fact that the games were spread over a period of 6 months was because there were spring, summer and winter games, as well as nautical games, each of which was concentrated over a period of time. The actual summer games had an opening and closing ceremony and took place in July.
Great Britain was the most successful nation, with less than 1,000 athletes taking part in the games and interludes so far, in London there were over 2,000 participants, including 37 women. The 4th Olympic Games in 1908 were of great importance for the Olympic Movement, since they corrected the failures of 1900 and 1904 and saved Baron de Coubertin. Reinforced in his position as IOC president, he declared the 1906 interlude as a German-Greek departure from the true Olympic ideology, he put pressure on the IOC and it deprived the interlude of the Olympic Games status.