A lot of new items for me the last few days. I was happy to add all of these to my Olympic photography archives.
Press Photographer's Messenger Pass from 1948 for wrestling. They issued these for photographers and messengers. They were very specific and not like current credentials. I have two photographer passes, football (soccer) preliminaries and the water polo venue, and one messenger pass for pentathlon. They are all the same color, about the size of a baseball card and about twice as thick on stiff cardstock. I believe they were press punched out of a larger piece of stock.
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This is a RPPC from the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. It shows Aileen Riggin of the U.S. and Nils Skoglund of Sweden. Riggin won the gold medal in springboard diving. She was 14 years and 120 days old at the time. Skoglund won a silver medal. He was 14 years 11 days at the time. He is the youngest male to win a medal in Olympic diving and the youngest male to win an individual medal in the Olympics. There are 4 women who were younger. I also have an original copy of the press photo of this shot.
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A photo I am very excited to obtain. It shows Walter Winans practicing for the running deer competition at the 1908 Olympics. Winans was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. His father and uncle were engineers helping to build the national railroad. He eventually settled in England. A talented shooter, he had to pledge allegiance to the United States at the U.S. Consulate in London to be able to compete in the 1908 Olympics. He won two gold medals and a silver medal in shooting. He was a noted sculptor and also won a gold medal in the arts category at the 1912 Olympics. Art competitions were held at the Summer Olympics from 1912 to 1948. Winans is the only person to win a gold in both disciplines. Winans finally visited the United States in 1910. I had never expected to find a photo of him shooting. I partly expected to find a studio portrait from England since he lived and died there. This came from France and was taken by V. Forbin of Paris.
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