How the Olympics Almost Came to Buffalo

Of course, it never happened, but here’s how it almost did. The announcement that Buffalo would host the Games was made, although it wasn’t as big a deal as people think today. The Olympics as we know them weren’t fully established yet: the 1900 Paris Games had been deemed a failure, and London didn’t want the next Olympics.

The first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens in 1896, were a success. The Games were later held in Paris, and were completely swallowed up by a World’s Fair. (The Games had no opening or closing ceremonies, events ran from May to October, and some athletes didn’t even know they were competing in the Olympics.)

Then as now, the Games were scheduled to be held every four years, but in Paris a proposal was made that they be held once a year. Shortly thereafter, Buffalo was chosen to host the Games in 1901. Just as the Paris Games had been held in conjunction with the World’s Fair, the Buffalo Games were to be twinned with the Pan-American Exposition. In this way, the Olympics could build on the Expo’s infrastructure, including a new stadium with a quarter-mile cinder track.

The headline in the Buffalo Courier on October 15, 1900, was: “Buffalo Secures 1901 Olympics.” The article was attributed to a “special telegram from the New York Herald to the Buffalo Courier” and the opening sentences read:

“NEW YORK — The United States will host the Olympic Games in 1901. They will be under the jurisdiction of the Amateur Athletic Union and will be held in Buffalo during the Pan-American Exposition.”

This effectively meant that the university was placed under the jurisdiction of AAU founder James E. Sullivan. (Keep his name in mind.)

“Four years ago, when the Games were revived, largely through the efforts of Pierre de Coubertin, it was planned that they would be held every four years,” the Courier article said, “but this idea has been abandoned and the international committee favours holding the Games annually, with the date and venue alternating between different countries.”

The article reported that Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden were interested in hosting the Games in 1901, but that the International Olympic Committee preferred England. Charles Herbert of the English Amateur Athletic Union dismissed the idea of ​​a modern revival of the ancient Games: “The English, as a rule, are somewhat sceptical of the athletic prowess of the Greeks, and think that the supremacy of the ancients existed only in the imagination of sculptors, poets and painters.”

A sports competition between England, Ireland, Scotland and the United States, he said, “would draw a crowd of 20,000 to London, but the Greek thing would draw nothing. We don’t want that.”

But Buffalo did it—or at least Sullivan wanted us to. He was in conflict with Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games, over the direction of international sports competitions. What happened next is recounted in Michael Loynd’s 2022 book, “The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man’s Fight to Capture Olympic Gold.” (That young man was Charles Daniels, of Buffalo’s Meldrum family, who was the first American swimmer to win Olympic gold.)

“In an effort to discredit Sullivan’s authority to hold the third Olympiad in Buffalo in 1901, Coubertin sent a telegram to the Chicago Times-Herald announcing that he had received a request from the president of the University of Chicago to host the third Olympiad in Buffalo in 1904 and that he was looking favorably upon the city being awarded the award,” Loynd wrote. “His proclamation prompted the University of Chicago to hold a huge bonfire party and Sullivan to throw a tantrum.”

Sullivan wrote an open letter to the New York press in which he claimed that the IOC had lost its authority over international sports decisions after the Paris fiasco and that his own newly created International Athletic Union was now the real authority. Sullivan’s letter, Loynd wrote, asserted that “the next Olympic track and field competition would indeed be held at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, as previously announced.”

But Coubertin then foiled Sullivan’s plans: He offered a position on the IOC board to Caspar Whitney, who had been Sullivan’s ally in the effort to bring the Games to Buffalo. Whitney, a journalist who had pioneered the concept of All-America selection in college football, “used his magazine to publicly assert the legitimacy of the IOC, discredit Sullivan’s authority over the Games, and stifle support for Sullivan’s yet-to-be-ratified international union,” according to Loynd’s book.

The idea of ​​the Buffalo Olympics was gone. The next Games, in 1904, were not held in Chicago, but in St. Louis. Tensions between Sullivan and Coubertin were not unrelated to this tumult. The only thing they agreed on was that women should not compete in sports. (The AAU’s Sullivan Award, established in 1930, is given annually to the best American amateur athlete. It is noteworthy that Caitlin Clark is the first to win it twice.)

The AAU held its 1901 championships during the Pan-American Exposition. Sullivan wrote about it in the September 1901 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. He praised the Exposition’s dazzling array of lights, but wrote that the track and field events would be remembered “years and years after the electric spectacle has been forgotten.”

The City of Light disagrees.