BOSTON (AP) – A gold medal awarded to the winner of the 110-metre hurdles at the 1904 St Louis Olympics, the first Games hosted on United States (US) soil, is being auctioned off as part of hundreds of lots of memorabilia representing various Olympics over the decades.
The medal bears the inscription “Olympiad, 1904” and shows a victorious athlete holding a wreath on the front.
On the other side, Nike, the goddess of victory in ancient Greek mythology, is shown alongside Zeus, the pantheon’s king of gods, and the words for the hurdles event it was awarded. The medal, awarded to American Fred Schule, includes the original ribbon and leather case.
This was the first Olympics where gold medals were awarded and the Americans took advantage, winning 78 of 96 events. Unlike Olympic medals these days which are mostly made of silver with gold plating, these were smaller and made entirely of gold.
An Olympic specialist at Boston-based RR Auction Bobby Eaton said it is unusual for a medal of this kind to come up for auction though this particular one came from Schule’s family’s collection.
“No one really knows exactly how many 1904 Olympic gold medals are still out there,” Eaton said.
“What we do know is they’re exceedingly rare. Of the roughly 100 gold medals awarded in St Louis, many have been lost to time or are tucked away in private collections and museums.”
Beyond the gold medals, the 1904 Games also were remembered for plenty of controversy and oddities.
The Games were originally awarded to Chicago, but organisers of the World’s Fair in St Louis feared competition for attendance and protested against a second international event held simultaneously.
Fair organisers threatened to host their own athletic events. It took the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, to forge peace by moving the Olympics 483 kilometres south.
