The Olympic Media dossier
1924: Paris
4 May-27 July
By now radio broadcasting was developing and reports were transmitted for the
first time from the Games.
Exclusive film rights were awarded to a French company (which?). This led to
an American threat to withdraw from the games when the US team was told
that they could not make their own film of a rugby semi-final against Romania.
(Only France, Romania and the US entered teams for the event, in which the
Americans took the gold.) After negotiations, the Americans were allowed to film
the match for educational and archive purposes.

A film camera records the men's 800m final.
The event is more notable for two contributions it made subsequently to the
media. Three swimming gold medals were won by Johnny Weissmuller, who went on to
star in Hollywood movies as Tarzan. The story of the British athletes who
competed and won gold in the 100m and 400m races was told in the 1981
Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire.