Small Home Gazette, Fall 2024
History Brief: A Top Performer!
American Walter Winans waved proudly to the crowd. He had already won two Olympic medals—gold for sharpshooting at the 1908 London Games and silver for the same event in 1912—but the gold he won at the Stockholm Summer Olympics was not for anything athletic at all. It was for a small piece of bronze he had cast earlier that year. For his work, An American Trotter, Winans won the first ever Olympic gold medal for sculpture.
In the early years of the modern games, there was a regular art competition component. According to the founder, French Baron, Pierre de Coubertin, the ideal Olympians were men who were “educated in both mind and body.”
From 1912 to 1948, medals were awarded for works of art inspired by sport in the categories of architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. Only two competitors in those years achieved Olympic medals in both sport and art competitions—one being Winans.
The 1948 Summer Olympics in London marked the final year for the Olympic art competitions. The juried competitions ended because the majority of participating artists were reported to be professionals, and Olympic athletes were required to be amateurs.
