2016-12-07 21:00
The last day of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics was different from any other in history. Until the late 1970s, the last competition to be held before the closing ceremony, was the team show jump… Read More
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Olympic Century Blog
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A Hostory of the modern Olympic Games from 1896 to the year 2000 with background information, videos, pictures - dedicated to the history of sports.
2016-12-06 21:01
While Dawn Fraser had become the female national sports icon of Australia, Murray Rose followed in her footsteps 24 hours later. On the last evening of competition at Melbourne's indoor pool… Read More
2016-12-05 21:12
Australia's athlete of the century, as she was later voted for, made Melbourne her Olympics at the evening of Dexember 6th, 1956. On this night, Dawn Fraser grabbed her second gold of the Ga… Read More
2016-12-04 21:00
From today's point of view, Agnes Keleti was far too old a gymnast when she arrived in Melbourne for the 1956 Olympic Games. But these were other times, times in which even a woman at the ag… Read More
2016-12-03 21:00
Of the145 gold medal winners at the 1956 Melbourne Summer Games, Anatoli Bogdanov was probably the most mysterious. This was not due to his sporting achievements - in fact, on December 4th… Read More
2016-12-02 21:00
Long before Greg Louganis became the most famous diver of all time, a young woman from California had achieved the very accomplishment as the legend. When she came to Melbourne, Patricia McC… Read More
2016-11-30 21:00
Whenever Hungarian athletes competed at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, it was a highly emotional affair. The bloody ending to the revolution in their home country, caused by the invasion of So… Read More
2016-11-29 21:52
A Harvard analyst named Gert Fredriksson the second most dominant Olympian of all time, second only to American jumper Ray C. Ewry, but still ahead of Carl Lewis and Michael Phelps. The Swed… Read More
2016-11-28 22:03
It took Christopher Brasher 8 minutes and 41.2 seconds to finish first in the Olympic 3000 meters steeplechase finals. But to get to the top of the podium, he had to endure more than three h… Read More
2016-11-28 12:39
Almost nobody noticed, but Olympic history was made on this cloudy Wednesday, November 28th, 1956, at Oaklands Hunt Club in the north of Melbourne. When Lars Hall crossed the finish line of… Read More
2016-11-28 12:36
Long before Pertti Karppinen and Mahe Drysdale, there was another dominator of the single sculls rowing scene. He came from Moscow and started his unprecedented career on November 27th, 1956… Read More
2016-11-25 18:57
Blonde hair, a wild stride with highly lifted knees, and - most of all - a wide open mouth. These were the trademarks of the biggest female star of the Melbourne Olympics. On Monday, Novembe… Read More
2016-11-23 21:09
The story of a hammer thrower winning Olympic gold with a crippled arm would have been enough to make tabloid headlines. But there was even more to the triumph of Harold Connolly at Melbourn… Read More
2016-11-22 21:10
It had been labelled as one of the great duels of the Games and so it was. On the early evening of Friday, November 23rd, Soviet runner Vladimir Kuts and Great Britain's Gordon Pirie squared… Read More
2016-11-21 21:10
With cannon fire and a rather slow version of Australia's most popular song, "Waltzing Matilda", Melbourne opened the 1956 Summer Olympics on a cloudy and cool Thursday afternoon. The ceremo… Read More
2016-11-20 21:21
Starting tomorrow, I will look back on the Melbourne 1956 Summer Olympics with daily highlights and news from 60 years ago. Today, I will begin with a prelude about the preparations."The fri… Read More
2016-11-18 08:19
Some of the greatest athletes of the world have tried in vain to win an Olympic gold medal. We portray them in this series.Olympic gold has eluded many athletes, but probably none in such a… Read More
2016-11-14 07:21
Some countries have won just one single gold medal in their Olympic history. We portray them in our series "The One and Only". One of them: Ecuador. Jefferson Perez is just 1.67 meters… Read More
2016-11-10 08:44
While a new German book sheds new light on the infamous 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen these days, many people don't know today how critical parts of the foreign press reacte… Read More
2016-11-06 06:22
Some of the greatest athletes of the world have tried in vain to win an Olympic gold medal. We portray them in this series.The name of her homepage says it all: Franzi - to Germans it's as s… Read More
2016-11-02 10:02
Some countries have won just one single gold medal in their Olympic history. We portray them in our series "The One and Only". One of them: Suriname. One 50 meters pool, ten 25 meters p… Read More
2016-10-29 05:20
When Hungary remembers the 60th anniversary of the 1956 uprising this fall, you will probably see this photograph over and over again - even in international media. The picture of the bloody… Read More
2016-10-25 08:18
Some of the greatest athletes of the world have tried in vain to win an Olympic gold medal. We portray them in this series.Gunder Haegg was a victim of his time and circumstances. When the S… Read More
2016-10-21 13:00
Some countries have won just one single gold medal in their Olympic history. We portray them in our series "The One and Only". One of them: Syria. The peaceful village of Simmern in the… Read More
2016-10-18 21:00
Some of the greatest athletes of the world have tried in vain to win an Olympic gold medal. We portray them in this series.His first Olympic appearance at the age of 19 was also going to be… Read More
2016-10-14 05:00
Some countries have won just one single gold medal in their Olympic history. We portray them in our series "The One and Only". One of them: Luxemburg. Josy Barthel was shaken by tears o… Read More
2016-10-11 22:44
In the wake of Rome's decision not to run for the 2024 Summer Games, it is interesting to remember that the first NOlympic city made headlines 40 years ago. When the 1976 Winter Games were o… Read More
2016-10-06 05:58
David Maraniss called them "The Games That Changed The World", German sports writer Karl Adolf Scherer labeled 1960 "the last nice Olympic summer". To a certain degree, both are right. Rome… Read More
2016-10-02 05:00
My runner-up pick may seem controversial, but only at the first look. Of course, many people remember Munich 1972 first and foremost for the terrorist attack on Israel's athletes on Septembe… Read More
2016-09-28 06:14
Surely, Barcelona had history on her side. When the Catalan capital was awarded the 1992 Summer Games in October 1986, nobody knew that the world was just going through the last phase of the… Read More
2016-09-24 08:30
On the evening of October, 1st, 2000, Juan Antonio Samaranch one final time used the closing ceremony of an Olympic Games to called them "the best ever". The outgoing president of the Intern… Read More
2016-09-20 11:13
Let's start our Top Five countdown of the best Summer Games with the 1952 edition staged in Helsinki. The Olympics in Finland probably were the most peaceful ever - which sounds ironic, as t… Read More
2016-09-16 12:34
While the 1936 Nazi Games have made big waves in German media this summer, another part of the capital's Olympic history has been fortgotten and remaines untold: One century ago, on July 1st… Read More
2016-09-09 16:52
Juan Antonio Samaranch, the late president of the IOC, made his mark at the end of each Games calling them "the best ever" (with the exception of Atlanta 1996). This sentence has seldom been… Read More
2016-09-08 15:31
This year it's yet another remembering. At least every decade, German TV is looking back on the most controversial Olympics ever, the 1936 Games in Berlin and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. This ti… Read More
2016-09-03 20:21
The aerial view (picture: www.tahoebest.com) makes it perfectly clear what these Games where about: They were the most compact ever, both Summer and Winter. It took visitor's only a few foot… Read More
2016-02-24 08:05
Norway was, is and always will be the home of winter sports. In no other country are people so enthusiastic and respectful about it, especially when it comes to endurance sports. It is a lit… Read More
2016-02-18 20:09
This is an emotional pick for different reasons. As everybody knows, the city of Sarajevo was the only Olympic host city ever to be destroyed by civil war. It happened only a decade after th… Read More
2016-02-16 20:05
It's time to count down my personal favourite editions of both Summer and Winter Games, starting with number five on the ice and snow list. In 1948, St. Moritz not only became the first town… Read More
2016-02-15 06:43
Music has been a key part of Olympic Games pageantry throughout the ages, starting in the ancienct arts contests. As Baron Pierre de Coubertin wanted to merge arts and physical culture when… Read More
2016-02-14 16:47
The history of the Olympic Games has always been about much more than purely sports. When I started to get interested in the Games, politics were dominating the sporting event. It was in 198… Read More
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