The OlyMADMen database on the 1904 Olympic Games

The data on these pages are according to the data on the OlyMADMen Database.
However, I have made the following changes:

  1. Frank Gailey is Australian.
  2. Otto Wahle is Austrian
  3. Percy Hagerman, Bob Fowler and Thomas Kennedy are Canadians
  4. Albert Corey is French
  5. Jack Holloway is Irish, as are the two athletes counted as British by the OlyMADMen
  6. I have added two unknown athletes
  7. I have added 40 Basketball players (38 Americans and 2 Canadians)
  8. Simpson Foulis is British
  9. Julius Lenhart is Austrian
  10. Clarence Lidington is Canadian
  11. Anton Heida was Czech at the beginning of the Olympics, American at his second event.
  12. Christian Deubler and Jacob Hergenhahn are German, but Adolf Spinnler is Swiss
  13. Birger Nilsen is Norwegian
  14. Adolf Spinnler and Andreas Kempf are Swiss
  15. That is a total of six gymnasts who are NOT to be classed Americans
  16. Hugh Grogan, William Murphy and Jack Sullivan are Canadians, but Almighty Voice is American, so I have two more Canadians and two fewer Americans
  17. Colonel Rice is American, NOT Canadian
  18. Franz Kugler is German - this affects the German and American totals in Tug-of-War, Weightlifting and Wrestling
  19. Oscar Olsen is Norwegian
  20. Frederick Ferguson is Canadian
  21. Franz Kugler, Rudolph Wolken and Dietrich Wortmann are Germans
  22. Bernhoff Hansen and Charles Ericksen are Norwegians
  23. Gustav Tiefenthaler is Swiss
  24. That is a total of seven wrestlers who are NOT to be classed Americans

By Sport

The data on these pages are according to the data on the OlyMADMen Database.
However, I have made the following changes: (the numbers refer to the remarks higher)

By Country

The data on these pages are according to the data on the OlyMADMen Database.
However, I have made the following changes: (the numbers refer to the remarks higher)

Included Sports and Events

In determining the exact nature of the Olympic events at Paris 1900, I had decided to follow Mallon to the letter.

For 1904, I have -for now- done the same. But read below the part about the Basketball.

Unknown Competitors

First we come to the "unknown competitors".

On the pages about the Athina 1896 Olympics, I have consistently counted the full number of competitors, known and unknown. For Paris 1900, I did the same, even if this proved more difficult.

There are a small number of unknown participants in St. Louis :

I have decided to add just two "unknown" competitors to the list

The case for Basketball

Mallon does not believe that Basketball should be included among the "Olympic" events.

Mallon uses four criteria to determine whether or not an event, held in 1904, should be considered "Olympic" (in fact, he uses the same criteria for 1900). One of these criteria is "international". This is quite necessary for 1900, since many a French national championships were actually held under an "Olympic" banner. Also in 1904, there were some national championships held in St. Louis, and these are correctly discarded by Mallon.

It should be noted that Mallon does not believe that there have to be actual competitors from more than one country in order to satisfy the condition he sets. There are a number of sports in St. Louis where non-Americans were allowed to enter, but they simply chose not to do so. Only in one (Cycling) did Mallon find foreign entrants, but the German team that was entered finally did not make it to St. Louis. In Archery, Boxing and Wrestling, all competitors were Americans.

In his book, Mallon calls the Waterpolo and Relay Swimming events non-olympic, because they did not contain international competition, and in fact, a German team was not allowed to enter those events. However, the German teams were not excluded because of Nationality, but because they were considered to be an "all-star" team.

There were a number of team sports and events held in 1904. In all cases, the foreign teams that competed (4 Canadian teams, one Greek and one South African) are listed under a club name. All the American teams that competed are similarly listed as clubs. This was the common way of competition in team sports at the time. It is quite acceptable to have some regulations against "All-star" teams under those conditions, just as there are regulations nowadays that make only national teams eligible for the Olympics, and not Real Madrid or the New York Rangers, who have many nationalities on their teams.

Which is why I urged Bill Mallon to include Waterpolo among the Olympic events, something which he indeed did.

Similarly, the Roque competition, of just four Americans, was excluded in the book but included since then in the database.

But this still leaves us with the Basketball. It should be noted that at that time, Basketball was hardly played outside of the USA. So it should not be strange to see no international teams taking part. But within the USA, this tournament was really nation-wide. There were six teams from four states: Buffalo and New York, NY, Chicago, Ill, Los Angeles, Cal, and two from St.Louis, Missouri. The Buffalo Germans have been inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame. I see no reason to exclude the Basketball event from Olympic consideration.

Written 2001-01-31 - last modified 2023-09-20

This page is part of the site "Full Olympians" by Herman De Wael. See here for a full Introduction.