How Great Britain lost an Olympic medal to France after 124 years

Great Britain has been stripped of an Olympic medal before the 2024 Games in Paris have even begun, with France the benefactors following an apparent mix-up which took place…124 years ago!

1900 Olympics cycling mix-up

Lloyd Hildebrand won silver in the men’s 25km cycle race at the 1900 Summer Olympic Games, the second ever to be held in modern history, in Paris, ironically.

Hildebrand, a British citizen, competed for the British Olympic team, although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has now revealed that new information has come to light which has led it to conclude the cyclist was “born and brought up in France, and competed for a French club before and after Paris 1900″.

At the time, participating athletes weren’t chosen by National Olympic Committees (NOCs), as is now the case. Instead, they had to pay an entry fee to compete, as well as provide a licence number given to them by the national federation which they competed in.

United States lead the way in all-time Summer Olympics medal table

Somehow, somewhere, Hildebrand and the Games organisers got things mixed up along the way, which has led to something of a delayed change to the all-time medal table.

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Of course, one medal either way isn’t going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. Great Britain is third in the overall medal table (284 gold medals in 29 Summer Games), which is generally ranked by number of golds won.

Incredibly, the Soviet Union (395 golds) is second despite only taking part in nine Games, with the United States (1,061 golds in 28 participations) by far and away the leading nation.