The Olympic Games in Stockholm (Sweden), the fifth in a row, were held from May 5 to July 27, 1912. They were attended by 2407 athletes, including 48 women, from 28 countries of the world. The program included 14 sports and 5 art contests, 102 sets of awards were raffled off.
No other Olympic Games have ever been organized with such thoroughness - they built a wonderful stadium, worked out the competition program in detail. Literally the whole city watched the Olympics, a festive atmosphere reigned everywhere. Finally, Pierre de Coubertin saw the realization of his main ideas.
The density of the results of the participants, as well as the abundance of records, showed that the rivalry of athletes at the Olympic Games has reached a level where it is necessary to train hard to win in any sport.
The dispatch of a large Russian national team (178 people) in these conditions led to an extremely unsuccessful performance of our team. The newspapers even called him "Sports Tsushima". The team in the unofficial standings took only 16th place, and all because it was hastily staffed.
The US team had the most gold medals - only 63 medals, of which 25 were gold and 19 were silver and bronze. However, in terms of the total number of medals (65 pieces), the United States was overtaken by Sweden (24 + 24 + 17), and the third place was taken by athletes from the UK - 41 medals (10 + 15 + 16).
It is noteworthy that Finland, which was part of Russia at that time, presented an independent team, eventually taking the honorable 4th place with 26 medals (9 + 8 + 9). Russia had only 4 medals (2 "silver" and 2 "bronze"). However, there was one more medal - a gold one. It was handed over to the equestrian Karol Rummel after the competition. Overcoming obstacles, the athlete did not cope with the latter. As a result, his horse fell on Rummel. Nevertheless, the athlete, with a strong-willed effort, climbed onto the horse and reached the finish line, constantly holding his chest with his hand. After the finish, he lost consciousness and with a fracture of 5 hips was taken to a Stockholm hospital.
This drama was followed by King Gustav V of Sweden, also the patron of the Games. He personally ordered another medal to be cast and presented to Rummel right in the hospital ward.
Also at the Games of the V Olympiad, an arts competition was organized for the first time. And the first "gold" in the framework of the cultural program of the Games was awarded to the poem "Ode to Sport". Its authors were the German M. Eshbach and the French G. Hohrod, although later it turned out that Pierre de Coubertin wrote Ode to Sport, and these names were only pseudonyms. So Coubertin wanted to bring the German and French peoples closer together in the face of the growing threat of hostilities.
