James Brendan Connolly: the First Olympic Champion of the Modern Era
Panathenaic Stadium, Athens, Greece. April 6, 1896. A cloudy, chilly spring day.
James Brendan Connolly is preparing for his competition – the triple jump, the first decision of the first Olympic Games of the modern era. The 27-year old American stands 5 feet 9 inches tall. He comes from Boston, Massachusetts, where he grew up as one of twelve children of a poor, Irish immigrant family.
Connolly had to overcome many obstacles to be here. The seven competitors for the triple jump title come from five countries, everyone has three attempts. No one knows until the end, how far the others and they themselves have jumped – the rules of the time. The official, Charles Perry from the London Athletic Club, is levelling the sand pit after each attempt. After his second try, Connolly said to Perry, “They ought to let a fuhla know, how far he jumps.” “As far as you’re concerned, you can go back to your dressing room and take your barth. You have this event in your pocket right now”, responded the official.
Perry was right: with 13,71 meters, Connolly leaped more than a meter farther than the second placed Frenchman Tuffèri. The US flag is being raised, and the Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem, played. “You’re the first Olympic victor in fifteen hundred years”, says Connolly to himself, and then, “The gang back home will be tickled when they hear of it!” The winners in 1896 were by the way not awarded with a gold medal – this is only the case since 1908; rather they got silver medals, and the second placed competitors bronze medals. No medals were awarded for the third place.
Sportsman and Student
As mentioned, Connolly had to overcome many obstacles – after dropping out from school, he worked as a clerk with an insurance company, and then joined the army. In parallel, he studied for the university entrance exam, and in October 1895 – half a year before Athens – he was accepted in Harvard where he studied engineering. He had been active in sports since his early childhood in Boston, running and jumping in the park against other kids. Later he also picked up football and cycling – before the arrival of the automobile, the latter was one of the most popular sports at the end of the 19th century.
Maybe it was also due to his keen interest in Greco-Roman culture, in addition to his passion for sports – either way, when Connolly learned about the Olympic Games in Athens, he decided to participate. He sought to get a leave of absence from his studies, which Harvard rejected. This left him no other choice than to quit his studies. As member of the first, 14-member strong, US Olympic team he travelled to Greece. It is unclear who eventually paid for Connolly’s trip – depending on the source, it was either himself or his local team, the Suffolk Athletic Club.
A Journey with Obstacles
Together with most of the other US Olympic team members, Connolly boarded the German ocean steamer “Barbarossa” which travelled to Naples. The team had a two-days stop-over there, until they would resume the journey by train to Brindisi. As it turned out, Connolly had to bring his athletic abilities to good use to still make the train – to provide some additional background, Connolly’s purse was stolen a day earlier, and on the day of departure to Brindisi someone gave it to the police. The policemen wanted that Connolly files a protocol at the police station, so that the thieve could be prosecuted.
It was getting close to departure time, and Connolly got increasingly anxious, as he recalls in his autobiography “Sea Borne: Thirty Years Avoyaging”, “There was a clock on the wall, and the long hand was on the ten-minutes-to-eight mark. I pointed to the clock saying: “Train to Brin-dee-see. Otto! Otto! Eight o’clock.””
The police officers were unimpressed, and insisted that Connolly still files the report. Eventually, Connolly “broke loose and ran for the train. It was a spacious railway station, and I did not know which platform to run to, but I kept yelling, “Brin-dee-see! Brin-dee-see! Otto! Otto!”“ Eventually, a porter pointed him the way, “Brin-dee-see! Si! Si!”.
The train was already pulling out of the station, there was no time to waste. With a courageous jump Connolly made it on board in the very last moment, three of his colleagues held him and pulled him in. “I did not know it then, but if I had missed that train, I would not have reached Athens in time for my event in the games”, he reflected later.
From Brindisi, the journey continued by ferry, and then again via train to Athens, where Connolly and his colleagues arrived after a 16-day-long journey. In Athens, the US team faced the next surprise: they had assumed that the Games would only start in twelve days, thus giving them sufficient time to rest and prepare. However, there was a misunderstanding regarding the date – at the time, there was still another calendar system, the Julian calendar, in use in Greece. And somewhere, somehow, someone must have mixed up the dates.
Fortunately, a US team member realized during breakfast that the Games would already start on that very day. Also, the first events would already take place – including the first final, the triple jump.
Journey Home
In addition to his victory in the triple jump, Connolly came in second in the high jump, and third in the long jump. Altogether, the US boys won nine of the twelve track and field events in Athens, and secured six second places. A proper welcome was organized for the successful Olympians after their return to the United States. Connolly, however, did not immediately return, as he prolonged his stopover in France, “I had stayed behind in Paris. I had read too much about Paris to be leaving it in a hurry now that I found myself there.” After four weeks, he travelled to London where he stayed another two weeks until he returned to the USA, where the citizenry of South Boston organized a celebration, and handed him a gold watch.
“It was swell hearing the old gang say: “Boy, you were good!””, remembered Connolly. “But when I took time to look around, there I was done with college and my money spent. I did not regret the college or the spending, but there was my living to make.”
Life After Athens
Connolly’s life remained adventurous. Four years after Athens, at the age of 31, he participated in the Olympics in Paris, again in the triple jump where he landed on the second place behind his compatriot Myer Prinstein.
Connolly participated also at the Games in St. Louis in 1904, although this time not anymore as an athlete, but as a journalist. At that point, he had already discovered his writing talent – after having participated in the Spanish-American War of 1898 as a solider, he had published his experience in the Boston Globe. After that he wrote primarily stories that took place at sea. His yearlong experience on ships of all types, from fishing boats to military vessels, was certainly beneficial for that.
When James Connolly died aged 88 in 1957, he left behind a literary legacy of 25 novels and over 200 short stories.
More than 120 years after Connolly won in Athens, the photos of that time are already yellowed. In his hometown though, more precisely in Joe Moakley Park in South Boston, a statue is remembering of Connolly and his Olympic feat – exactly 13,71 meters after take-off, the athlete touches ground. He went far, James Brendan Connolly, the first Olympic Champion of the modern era.