1908 Ad

Scandal, controversy, nationalist squabbling, death - all shadow the first Olympic gold medal won by an African American. john Baxter Taylor Jr., college champion and world record-holder in the 440-yard dash, deserved better. The year was 1908. In America, it was the year of the deadly white riot in Springfield, Ill., that led to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It was also the year of the London Olympic Games, the fourth of the era. In the air hung the hope that the London Games would establish a precedent for decorum, rescuing the fledgling Olympic movement from the carnival atmosphere of its immediate predecessors. The 1900 Paris Games and the 1904 St. Louis Games had merely complemented gala expositions that had overshadowed the Olympics. As a matter of fact, the Paris Games had attracted more athletes than spectators; an exasperated Hungarian Olympic official had described the St. Louis Games as "a fair where also sports."

Sadly, the sole precedent established in London - one that has never been repeated in any Olympic Games - was the contentious rerunning of an event. Despite the presence of King Edward VII at the opening ceremonies and the gleaming new Shepherd's Bush Stadium in which the events were held, the Fourth Olympiad, which was solely managed by British officials, would be most remembered for disputes and squalid nationalist outbursts. While many nations protested allegedly prejudicial British rulings, and the Russians attempted to prevent the raising of the Finnish flag and the British attempted to do the same for the Irish flag, the most heated controversies raged between Americans and Brits.

The U.S. team got in the first blow, when its flag bearer refused to dip the Stars and Stripes as he passed King Edward, an act that elicited raucous laughter from the Americans in the stands. Two weeks later, British officials at the marathon's finish line rushed onto the track to aid Italy's staggering Dorando Pietri. As the officials supported Pietri's steps toward the tape, the United State's john Hayes sped by, claiming the gold medal. British fans booed, protesting that the officials had deprived the collapsing Pietri of victory.

But nothing set off louder howls of protest, nor more vitriolic nationalist frenzy, than the 400-meter race in which Taylor participated. Everyone in Shepherd's Bush Stadium knew it would be a hotly contested race. Although all four finalists - three Americans and the British favorite, army Lt. Wyndham Halswelle - had legitimate chances to capture the gold medal, the 26-year-old Halswelle, a veteran of the Boer War, had the fastest time in the qualifying rounds. As the runners lined up on July 23, though, no one in the stadium could have anticipated the race's result.

Bursting from the start line was the fastest American can from the qualifying rounds, William Robbins, who set a torrid pace, opening a 12-meter lead on the field at the halfway point. The crowd shouted in frenzy, as all four contenders were on pace for a new world record.

One hundred meters later, both Cornell University's J.C. Carpenter and Halswelle made their moves on the flagging Robbins, swinging slightly wide of the leader's outside shoulder. (Taylor, who had not fared well in the British weather and who had run the slowest time of the qualifying finalists, still trailed his three rivals.) As Carpenter and Halswelle passed Robbins coming into the homestretch, the Cornell racer appeared to run diagonally, hindering Halswelle's evident attempt to seize the lead.

To the largely British crowd - and to the British race officials, who had been posted at 20-meter intervals along the track in fear that the Americans would employ team tactics to ensure Halswelle's defeat - it appeared that American collusion was fore-stalling a British victory and ensuring one for the Yanks. Officials on the final turn signaled "foul" to the race's chief judge at the finish line, who stepped forward and cut the finish tape to nullify the contest. Trackside officials then stepped onto the cinders in an attempt to seize the American runners. Carpenter sped on to "victory" (in a time Americans claimed as 47.8 seconds and the British said was 48.6), and Robbins too ran on, just out of their grasp; but Taylor was pulled from the track.

U.S. officials and athletes who witnessed these events were stunned - but only momentarily. They swiftly surrounded the British officials on the field, shouting their outrage into faces equally contorted with anger. Not to be outdone, British fans left their seats and poured onto the field. Pandemonium erupted; reason fled. For a moment, it looked as if a real riot might erupt, but Games officials and athletes managed to prevent that, though they could not restore order. That task fell to London's "bobbies" - and it took them a full half-hour.

Amid acrimony, the London Olympic Games chairman announced that the 400-meter race was nullified and would be run two days hence, absent Carpenter, who was disqualified. (Photographs taken during the homestretch of the 400-meter race indicated that Carpenter did indeed run wide, impeding - intentionally or not-Halswelle's course.) This decision pleased few: It intensified American outrage and it ultimately embarrassed Halswelle. It also very shortly placed Taylor in an invidious position.