Friday 23 July 2021, the 2020 Summer Olympics opened in Tokyo, about a year late. Spain sends a delegation of as many as 320 athletes who will compete in a total of 32 sports. The country has participated in most Olympic Games since the year 1900 and has won a total of 154 medals, that is – the Spanish Olympic Committee maintains that the correct number is 155. Among the medals recognized by the International Olympic Committee, by the way, is gold in an Olympic event where Spain only competed against a single opponent.
In total, Spain ranks 26th on the list of countries that have won the most medals from the Olympic Games. The vast majority come from summer games, where water sports top the list: Spain has won as many as 19 Olympic medals in sailing, 16 in canoeing and kayaking, eight in swimming, three in water polo and four in synchronous swimming.
Cycling is a popular sport in Spain, and the country has secured as many as 15 Olympic medals in this sport. Spanish track and field athletes have collected a total of 14 Olympic medals, and tennis players are not very far behind with a total of 12 medals.
By the way, Spain was not late in joining Olympic competitions. The first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens in 1896, already the next time the Games were held, Spain was participated for the first with a small delegation. In the year 1900, Paris hosted the Summer Olympics. And this is where the discussion about Spanish medals originates.
Bloody competition
The Paris Games were part of the magnificent World Fair in the French capital. The Eiffel Tower, built for the occasion, was the very symbol of what can safely be described as a French show of strength.
Sport must have been of lesser importance to the French, as the games were spread out over a full five months. Some of 997 competing athletes later said that they were not fully aware that they had even participated in the Olympics.
In any case, during the Paris Games the disagreement between the International and the Spanish Olympic Committee arose. Among the sports in 1900 was pigeon shooting – it is an event we still recognize although now called clay pigeon shooting, skeet and trap, but in the French capital, the participants shot live pigeons. And it must have been a bloody affair that they did not look to repeat: Olympic organizers from the next Olympics in 1904 switched to clay pigeons.
300 pigeons are said to have been killed in the Paris Olympics. The winner shot 22 birds, closely followed by a Spanish nobleman, mountaineer and politician. Pedro José Pidal and Bernaldo de Quirós took out 21 pigeons in the same competition. You will not find him on the winner’s lists of the International Olympic Committee. And do not think that the reason is animal welfare considerations.
In fact, cash prizes were awarded to the winners, and this was contrary to the Olympic statutes. The winners of the pigeon shooting event in 1900 were consequently not recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the disagreement over the number of Olympic medals between Spain and the IOC persists to this day.
An easy victory
Anything but fierce competition took place in another Olympic branch in Paris: the Basque pelota. It is easy to forget that the disciplines in which Olympic athletes compete have changed over time. In Tokyo 2020, for example, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing are making their Olympic debuts. And two disciplines – baseball and softball – are being included in the Olympic program once again.
In Paris in 1900, Basque pelota was on the schedule. You may not know the sport, but this ball game had two teams, each consisting of two players, facing each other on a court. The game where the teams are separated by a line, a net or playing against a wall, has roots back to the Middle Ages. Historians believe that it originated in the border area between France and Spain – i.e. traditional Basque lands – sometime in the 13th century. Many people consider the game to be the origin of tennis, jai alai and squash.
Today, the International Basque Pelota Federation (Federación Internacional de Pelota Vasca) has members in Spain, France, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Cuba and the United States, so the sport has by no means died out. However, interest must have been limited in 1900: Spain ran away with the gold medal after outcompeting the French team – which was the only other participant. And this medal is recognized by both the IOC and the Spanish Olympic Committees.
By the way, Basque pelota was removed from the Olympic events program after the modest interest and participation in Paris, but the sport must have supporters who do not usually give up easily: They succeeded in getting Basque pelota back into the Olympic program at the 1924 games, 1968 and 1992, then admittedly only as a demonstration sport.
Sports and politics
As mentioned, Spain was among the first countries to participate in the Olympics. Since 1920, the country has sent delegations to all the Olympic Games with the exception of the Summer Olympics in Berlin in 1936 and the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia in 1956.
Summer of 1936, when the summer games were organized by the Nazi regime in Germany, Spaniards were busy fighting a civil war, a war that lasted into 1939. It ended, as is well known, with General Franco and his supporters taking power. Spain admittedly attended the Winter Games held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February of that year, so it was not a question of a boycott by the Spanish Olympic Committee.
However, there was a boycott in 1956 when the Australian city of Melbourne hosted the Summer Games. Spain, still led by Franco, protested against the Soviet Union’s entry into Hungary the same year by withdrawing from the Olympics. The country admittedly managed to send participants to the equestrian events which took place in Stockholm five months earlier. These were held in the Swedish capital due to strict Australian quarantine rules making it almost impossible to bring horses into the country.
Entry rules and restrictions are thus not new this year. As is well known, the Tokyo Olympics have already encountered some problems and complications, mainly related to the corona pandemic and the many rules and restrictions it entails. Still, it is exciting to follow Spain’s 184 male and 136 female athletes in this year’s – or is it more correct to say last year’s – Olympiad. Who knows how many medals Spain will add to its 154 or 155 medals already won?
PS: Thus far it seems we can add two silver and one bronze medal to the collection, making the total 157 or is it 158 Olympic medals?
Find Your Spain!
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