This year marks the centenary of the 1908 London Games - the fourth Olympiad - in which Britain finished on top of the heap with a haul of 56 gold medals, not to mention 50 silver and 39 bronze. It is also a Games that is perhaps best remembered for the enduring image of Dorando Pietri, an exhausted Italian athlete, being helped across the finishing line of the marathon, which led to his disqualification. The gold medal instead went to American John Hayes, but Queen Alexandra did award Pietri with a silver cup in recognition of his achievement, since he himself had not been responsible for his disqualification.

“Later I discovered that no one had ever run a marathon so fast before,” Pietri recounted. “Hayes of America, who was six months younger, took half a minute longer. Only 27 of the runners, less than half of those who had started, managed to finish. It seems that Queen Alexandra, who had taken great interest in the race, was moved by my misfortune, because the following day she presented me with an inscribed silver cup, ’in remembrance of the marathon race from Windsor to the stadium, 24 July 1908. From Queen Alexandra.’ “

It is a sometimes overlooked fact, however, that the Olympics of 1908 were originally scheduled to be held in Rome, which had been chosen above the claims of Milan and Berlin. Well, the Eternal City was due to host the Games until Mount Vesuvius erupted in destructive fashion in April 1906, killing more than 100 people and spewing forth the most lava ever recorded from a Vesuvian eruption. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Italian government withdrew their capital’s Olympic candidacy to divert much needed funds and resources to the stricken area around Vesuvius.

Britain, with its newly created National Olympic Committee, agreed to step into the breach in November 1906, despite the Games being less than two years away. The chairman of the Organizing Committee was a formidable gentleman named Lord Desborough, who had previously rowed in a Boat Race (which finished in a dead heat), climbed the Matterhorn and swum across the base of Niagara Falls on two occasions, once allegedly in a snowstorm.

Desborough, furthermore, was instrumental in making sure that the stadium built at White City in Shepherd’s Bush was at no cost to the Olympic organisers, because a Franco-British Exhibition was also planned for the site earlier in 1908. In return for a share of gate receipts, the Exhibition organizers provided a stadium at a cost of £44,000 and even gave a donation of £2,000 towards the running costs. Desborough himself lifted the first girder into place, saying: “As this country is the cradle of athletic sports, it is absolutely essential that the Olympic Games are carried out in a manner worthy of a great athletic nation.”

Rome, for their part, had to wait until 1960 before they hosted the Olympics, by which time London had already done so a second time - in 1948. London had, in fact, been awarded the 1944 Games, which were cancelled because of the Second World War, and was always a likely option to host the first post-war Summer Olympics, given that its existing facilities remained largely unscathed through the war. And the IOC concurred.

With Britain rebuilding after the war, though, the organizers decided against the building of an Olympic Village due to the anticipated high costs. Instead, athletes were housed in military barracks, government buildings and schools while rationing meant that many teams were forced to bring their own food, with any leftovers being donated to nearby hospitals. Having been perceived as the aggressor nations in the recent global conflict, Germany and Japan were not invited to the 1948 Olympics, for which Wembley Stadium was used as the main arena.

A then record 59 nations took part, with Fanny Blankers-Koen, from the Netherlands, proving to be the star of the Games, winning gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 80-metres hurdles and 4 x 100m relay events. Not for nothing was the mother of two from Baarn known as the Flying Housewife. It will all be rather different, one suspects, when London plays host for a third time.

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