Adlerz, Johannson and Jansson at the 1912 Games – da;gettyimages.ca
Article by John Manenti
If you look at the Olympic Medal Table for the Diving Discipline it can be safely said without fear of contradiction that the same until the end of the 1960s it was an almost exclusive territory of conquest for American specialists, both in the men’s and women’s fields, proof of which is that in Men’s platform won 10 of the first 13 editions of the Games, increased ad 11 in the ski jump competition – all consecutive from Antwerp 1920 to Mexico City 1968 – also monopolizing the podium on 7 (!!) occasions…
A supremacy also reaffirmed with regards to the female sector, given that women first 11 editions of the event from the Platform, the Americans won 8, while from the Trampoline they are undefeated from the debut of the specialty in Antwerp 1920 up to and including the Melbourne Games 1956 – also in this case occupying all three steps of the podium in the first six occasions – and then bringing the series to 11 victories in 13 editions.
But if we take a more careful look at the three Olympic Games held during the First World War – namely Stockholm 1912, Antwerp 1920 and Paris 1924 – it can be discovered that in the US domain there has been a “falla”, which they mainly took advantage of the Swedish divers, a circumstance which is not easy to discover as it relates to a specialty – defined “Plain High” in English terms, translatable as “High platform” – inserted in the relevant Program only on the three aforementioned occasions and exclusively for the men’s sector…
It is, in practice, a third test in addition to the two “classics” of the three-metre springboard and the 10-metre platform and which consists of 5 series of dives – one from a standstill and another with a run-up from a height of 5 metres, followed by one from a standstill and two with a run-up from 10 meters – specialty that made its debut at the 1912 Stockholm Games.
It must be said, however, that the specialists of the nation organizing the Games certainly do not need this new specialty to establish themselves at the highest levels, even if in the first test staged in the Scandinavian capital the “lion’s share” I am the Germans, who placed their three representatives on as many steps of the podium of the Ski Jump, with the gold going to Paul Gunther, the silver going to Hans Luber and the bronze going to Kurt Behrens, already silver four years earlier in London…
In the meantime, however, the preliminaries of the “double platform” – as it is perhaps more correct to define it – involving 31 athletes divided into four Groups from which the first classified and the four further best scores qualify for the Final, scheduled for July 11th …
The home divers dominate these groups, with Johan Jansson took second with 38.3 points, Hjalmar Johansson – Gold four years earlier in London from the Platform – the third with 40.1 points and Erik Adlerz the fourth with 39.9 points, only exception arising from Group 1 where the aforementioned German Gunther wins, albeit with a modest score of 36.1 pointswhile the others qualified for the final act all come from Group 3, i.e the Finn Toivo Aro and three other Swedes (Axel Runstrom, Ernst Brandsten and Viktor Crondahl)all included between the 39.4 points of the Finnish and the 37.0 of the last Scandinavian.
It is therefore difficult to think that in the Final, with six home athletes out of eight divers competing for a medal, the Gold Medal could escape them, a circumstance that was promptly confirmed – moreover with Gunther not finishing the competition – with the first four places occupied by the Swedes, and The 20-year-old Adlerz was the best, rated as the best by four of the five members of the Jury, thus obtaining 7 ordinal points. (1+1+1+3+1) and 40.0 points on average for the value of his performances…
The determining factors for the awarding of the Gold are: the disparity of views between the fourth judge – which awards first place to the now 38-year-old Johansson (40.0 points), second to Jansson (39.5) and third to Adlerz with 38.0 points – and the fifth which, on the contrary, sees Adlerz and Jansson as the best tied with 38.0 points, relegating Johansson to fourth positionpreceded (37.5 to 36.5) also by the Finnish Aro.
Therefore, considering the ordinal points as the first discriminating factor, behind the Gold Medal Johansson and Jansson are tied with 12 pointscon the silver medal went to the first for a better (39.3 to 39.1) overall average score leaving Crondahl on the fringes of the podium, penalized by the evaluations of the third and fifth judges …
And Adlerz, who, moreover, confirmed himself as the best from the Platform by winning, on the following 15th July, a second Gold from the “classic specialty”imposing itself with 7 ordinal points and 73.94 overall, repelling the attack of German Albert Zumer, who concludes his journey with 10 and 72.60 points respectivelywith the podium completed by another Swede Gustaf Blomgren ahead of his compatriot Johansson, who thus ends a brilliant career.
The obvious observation that the Swedes “they played at home” is valid up to a certain point, also because eight years later on the occasion of the Antwerp Games 1920 – given that the 1916 edition, originally scheduled for Berlin, was canceled due to the war events of the First World War – in the Belgian city the United States selection presents itself in all its strength…
This time too, the program places the first specialty on stage as the “double platform”, with the three qualifying groups scheduled for 23 August 1920 and the Final two days later, and the only Adlerz and Jansson are both now 28 (curiously born five days apart from each other…), still in the running compared to eight years agowith the regulation providing that the first three of each group will access the Final.
“Nothing new under the sun“, one could say, quoting the famous biblical phrase, so much so that the aforementioned elimination rounds see the winners the just 14 year old Nils Skoglund in Group 1 with 153.0 points, the 19 year old Arvid Wallmann in precedence (8 points ordinal to 11, albeit with a lower overall score…) Adlerz in second and Jansson with 171.5 points in the third…
This time I am only the four athletes mentioned above represented Sweden in the final testsbut for the other five finalists only the reserve positions remain as it is from the “Scandinavian Poker” which results in the awarding of medals in addition to the one who, despite himself, is excluded.
And, this time, after the double Gold in Stockholm, to stay on the edge of the podium is Adlerz (with 19 ordinary points and 173 overall) compared to Jansson (16 and 175.0 respectively), while the challenge for Gold is extremely balanced and uncertain enough to see Wallmann prevail over Skoglund by just one point (7 to 8) ordinal and even half (183.5 to 183.0) based on the overall evaluation assigned by the Judges to their respective performances …
The American revenge takes place on August 27th in the Trampoline test, where we still find a well-aligned Swedish quartet, if it weren’t for the fact that he placed from fourth to eighth, with the podium monopolized by the American specialists in a Final dominated by the 19 year old from Portland Lou Kuehn, with just 6 ordinal points (which means that four Judges saw him first and the fifth second…) and 675.40 as an overall score, preceding by a wide margin his compatriots Bud Pinkston and Louis Balbach.
As in Stockholm, both the Trampoline and thedouble platform” present a podium “single color”, so that the “showdown” is entrusted to Platform “classic”, whose seven-way final took place on the morning of 29 August 1920 and in which three Americans, as many Swedes and the only Brazilian Adolpho Wellisch take part, destined to finish in last place…
And here, there the challenge for Gold is limited to just two competitors, namely the aforementioned Pinkston, a 20-year-old diver from Kansas, and the “usual” Adlerz hoping to replicate Stockholm successhowever in the end having to abdicate in front of his younger opponent, who has the upper hand in the ordinal score (7 to 10) and in the global one, with 503.30 points compared to 495.40 for the Swedewhile the podium is completed by the American Harry Prieste preceding the Swedish pair formed by Blomgren and Yngve Johnson.
Proof, that of the “double platform”, which is included for the last time in Olympic program also four years later at the 1924 Paris Games, where Adlerz is still present but fails to pass the qualificationsdespite having totaled 151.0 points which would have guaranteed him access if only he had been part of the third Group, where the American Ben Trash and Jansson went to the Final with 146.0 and 144.0 points respectively …
And, as often happens in sport, the now 32 year old Jansson, who qualified with the worst score in the Elimination Round, came close to winning that “Olympic Glory” always eluded him compared to his compatriotsmaking his own silver with the respective scores of 14.5 and 157.0 not far from the Australian Dick Eve, who with his 13.5 and 1160.0 points breaks the Scandinavian dominance in this specific specialtywith the bronze going to Britain’s Harold Clarke …
Completely different music, as anticipated in the introduction, in the two more tests from the Trampoline and the Platform, which see the Americans “getting away” by monopolizing the podiums in both specialtiesthus starting that period of “invincibility” destined to continue until the end of the 60s …
We hope that, with this story, there will be someone else who also remembers the Swedish divers of the early 20th century…
2024-06-28 19:17:16
#SWEDISH #DOUBLE #TRIPLE #PODIUM #PLATFORM #STOCKHOLM #GAMES #ANTWERP #SportHistoria
