Given the fanfare and publicity around the Olympics today, it’s almost impossible to imagine a time when athletes didn’t know they were competing in an Olympic event. But that’s exactly what happened at the 1900 Paris Games.
Margaret Abbott is surely one of the only people in history to win an Olympic event without knowing it.
In 1900, Abbott won the women’s golf tournament at the Paris Games with a nine-hole 47. Interestingly, one of the other competitors she defeated was her own mother.
Instead of the medals which are so commonplace today, winners in Paris were given valuable artefacts. Abbott was awarded a porcelain bowl for her victory.
How glamorous.
Perhaps as a result, she was unaware that golf was a part of the Games, believing her win was no more significant than any other tournament. The reality was she had just become the first American woman to win an Olympic event, and just the second woman ever.
Abbott lived her entire life not knowing she was an Olympic champion, and it wasn’t until 1996 that her relatives were told of the news, after a professor from the University of Florida, Paula Welch, spent ten years tracking down her family.
Advertisement
To be fair, Abbott wasn’t the only athlete oblivious to the Games going on around them – 1900 was so poorly organised that even some of the track and field medallists were unaware they had just won an Olympic title.
It’s a good thing everything’s so much more organised these days. I mean, the only problems facing the Rio Games are filthy waterways, delays in the construction of the stadiums, athletes deciding to forego the Olympics, and the outbreak of a dangerous disease.
See? So much better.
Be sure to follow The Roar as we look back on some of the most memorable moments in Olympic history – be they weird and wacky or brilliant and significant – and count down the days until the Rio Olympics opening ceremony.