A Proper Spectacle: Women Olympians 1900-1936 [Paperback]

'A Proper Spectacle' - a well researched and illustrated book containing many historical facts. It makes fascinating and compulsive reading.'

An invaluable contribution to our knowledge, fascinating and revealing - an excellent pioneering work.'

With a foreword written by women's world record holder in the marathon, Paula Radcliffe,‘A Proper Spectacle’ – Women Olympians 1900-1936' tells the story of the women pioneers who fought to become Olympians from the Ancient Games up until World War II. With a unique approach to sporting history, the authors set out on a quest to find the world's oldest surviving women athletes from many sports to find out first hand what had inspired them to become Olympians. They found 32 women from 10 different countries who share their first hand memories and personal photographs in the book.
There were no women registered as competitors when the first modern Olympic Games took place in 1896. Even when their participation was given official sanction in 1900, for many years they encountered incredible opposition to being accepted as serious athletes. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Modern Olympics, was himself vehemently opposed to women taking part in competitive sport. In July 1912 he said:
"Tomorrow, there will probably be women runners, or even women football players? If such sports are played by women, would they constitute a proper spectacle to offer the audience that an Olympiad brings together? We do not think this may be claimed to be so."

Though we might forgive the Baron his opinion - it was over ninety years ago, after all - he was not alone in his views. At the turn of the twentieth century, many doctors believed that if women took part in sport there was a strong chance they would become infertile, and it was a common view that sporting women might even turn into men. It was a time when women could not vote. Their main role in life was to marry and raise a family.
The earliest women Olympians of the modern era were born during this time, so what was it about them that led them to defy convention when so much was against them?

'A Proper Spectacle' answers this question and examines women's Olympic sporting history through top line research, beautiful, unique photographs and entertaining box stories. The book has become a recognised leading text amongst schools, colleges and universities throughout the world and has 168 pages, 100 black and white and 26 colour photos.

Our book was written on the eve of a new century, and of the Sydney Olympics. The year 2000 marked one hundred years of women’s recognition as legitimate competitors in the Olympic Games.
With a few exceptions, women’s Olympic sporting history is not well documented, and published first hand accounts seem very rare. When we embarked upon this book, we wanted to make a contribution to that history by allowing the women to tell their stories and to set them in their historical context. The Olympic Associations of Greece, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Italy, Sweden and USA helped in the search and 32 women from these countries have contributed.
‘A Proper Spectacle’ is not a book concerned with statistics - the National and World records these women held are long since shattered - but it contains historical facts, stories and memories about sports, sportswomen and the Summer Olympic Games that we believe to be important and that have moved or interested us.
In the true Olympic spirit of it being important to participate and not necessarily to win, some of the women featured in this book did not gain medals, and not all made it to the Olympics - but their stories illustrate crucial aspects of women’s struggle to participate in sport, and provide a wonderful insight into their lives. The women who played competitive sports in the early part of the twentieth century did so in a climate of unacceptability - Betty Schwartz Robinson’s (USA) very first women’s gold track medal was won when it was still being debated whether or not she should even be there!
Our book celebrates these bold spirits who have enabled the women athletes of today to excel.

Stephanie Daniels and Anita Tedder are published members of the International Society of Olympic Historians and are dedicating themselves to uncovering and preserving women's sporting history. They have written numerous newspaper and magazine articles and presented papers about their research throughout the world. They contributed fifteen articles for the Souvenir Olympic Programmes of the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Both Anita and Stephanie trained as Physical Education teachers at Bedford College of PE and are both currently working to preserve the College archive. Stephanie is also Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University where she lectures in Physical Education.

Chapter 1
The Earliest Olympics

At the ancient Greek Olympics, any ordinary married woman found watching male athletes competing at the Games was in big trouble - she was likely to be taken to the nearby cliffs at Mount Typaneum and thrown off!

Olympic records begin in 776 BC, and tell of a festival of sport and chariot racing which was held every four years at Olympia to honour the god Zeus.
Women were not allowed to compete or even in most cases to watch their husbands and sons in action at the games, but indirectly the Olympics owed their existence to a woman. Unless a Priestess of Demeter was present the rules forbade the Games to take place at all. A woman could also attend the Games as a spectator if she were a virgin or, bizarrely, if she were a prostitute! So the average Greek woman had distinctly limited Olympic opportunities. Yet as with so many Olympic tales, even at this time some women achieved remarkable things.

Boxing - Kallipateria and the first sex test

In 440 BC, a Greek woman called Kallipateria became a boxing coach. Kallipateria was the daughter of an Olympic champion boxer called Diagoras and her husband, also a boxing champion, coached her son. When he died Kallipateria took over the coaching, and her son reached the Olympic final. Even though she knew she risked being thrown off the cliffs, Kallipateria could not resist going to watch her son in the great event so she sneaked in to the Games disguised as a male trainer.

When her son won, Kallipateria could not contain herself and jumped over the wall of the trainers’ booth to give her son a celebratory hug. Unfortunately, her disguise fell off and she was recognised. The authorities could not decide whether or not she should be put to death - as a married woman she had committed a crime in witnessing an Olympic event. After some discussion it was decided that she should be saved and pardoned out of reverence for the achievements of her family. To prevent any other unwelcome women sneaking in, a law was passed requiring all trainers to appear naked at the games. This seems to be the first sex test in Olympic history!

Chariot Racing

If they couldn’t compete or watch, women did have one rather more dubious function at the Games - sometimes they were offered as prizes. Originally the Olympic chariot race was a race for suitors and women were won by victorious charioteers. Legend tells that the hero of the siege of Troy, Odysseus, won his bride Penelope in a suitors’ race staged by her father.

But as the games developed, women who wanted to compete found a way around the rules by entering their own horses and chariots. There were no Greek laws to prevent women owning horses, and in equestrian events, owners, not the charioteers, were proclaimed the victors. This is how Princess Kyniska of Sparta became the very first female Olympic champion, and the first woman to become a champion horse trainer. Though her four horses and chariot won in 392 BC, she was not allowed to be there at the Games or to collect her prize.

Later, in the first century AD, women also took part in chariot racing. At Delphi there is a statue of the three daughters of Hermesionax, who all won events at the Pythian Games, a rival to the Olympics, and one of these girls was a charioteer.

First Games for Women

The first record of girls participating in their own organised athletic competition was at the games of Hera, which first took place in Greece in 1000 BC and were held every four years, just like the men’s games. In a series of races for unmarried girls over various distances, the girls competed wearing a ‘chiton’, a short tunic which left their right shoulder uncovered to the breast. If they won they received olive wreaths and a share of a cow. The unfortunate cow was sacrificed to the goddess, Hera, and the winners were allowed to erect statues of themselves. Unlike the charioteers, it does not seem that they were offered a "beautiful and good man for a husband" in their competitions!