Talk:Egypt at the 1906 Intercalated Games

Latest comment: 5 years ago by MedMan in topic Rewriting (olympic) history?

Rewriting (olympic) history?

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Nobody, not one single athlete did officially represent either the Ottoman Empire or Egypt in the 1906 Games. All participants coming from those two geographical regions went to the games on their own, aided at best by their athletic clubs and competed under no ottoman or egyptian flag. Both flags were never hoisted at any time during the games and there was no egyptian or ottoman participation at the Parade of Nations during the opening ceremony. As an example at that parade the (so named in the Wikipedia) "Ottoman participants" from Thessaloniki, the football team of the greek "Omilos Filomouson" Club, went to the parade escorted by the philharmonic orchestra of the club and dressed in blue-white uniforms, as a declaration of their "greekness". On the other hand, in 1906 there didn't even exist national Olympic committees in these particular countries and thus they weren't even allowed to officially take part. In detail, both countries formed national committees about 1910-11 and were approved by the IOC to take part at olympics just after. As a result both countries had their first official olympic participation in Stockholm 1912 (did none of you ask himself, why two "participant" countries of 1906 never showed up 1908 in London?). Not only this lemma, but almost every lemma concerning the 1906 Games has to be rewritten in the part referring to above facts. Sources are always a good argument: One turkish source and a greek one, the latter, written in 1907, being based on the official IOC announcements. Another part of the history: After winning silver and bronze by the Smyrna and Thessaloniki football teams, the Ottoman Empire diplomacy sent a Démarche to the IOC, complaining and trying to claim the two medals for itself, because the two cities were part of its territory (this reveales clearly that the two teams did not take part on behalf of the Ottoman Empire)[1]. There is also the all-time medal list on the official website of the turkish olympic committee where the 1906 Games (also 1896, 1900, 1904 and 1920) are marked as Katılmadı (did not participate) [2]. Last but not least, Turkey nowadays keeps accepting 1912 as its first olympic participation and did in 2012 celebrate the 100 years participation anniversary. PS. sports-reference.com is a barely reliable source, surely useful but with quite many mistakes (both in usability and error amount it's comparable to the football database rsssf.com). --MedMan (talk) 19:40, 22 September 2019 (UTC)Reply