The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France, 100 years ago this month with the opening ceremonies held Jan. 25, 1924. Originally, when the International Olympic Committee planned its first Winter Games, it referred to them as the International Winter Sports Week of the 1924 Paris Summer Olympics. It wasn’t until after its great success that it retrospectively became known as the first Winter Olympics — or just Chamonix 1924.
The Paris and Chamonix Olympics of 1924 have both inspired many stories, books and films. For example, “Chariots of Fire” (1981) is an epic film that depicts the saga of two British athletes that culminates in their participation in the Paris Games. This true story about track sprinters Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams won four academy awards, including the Oscar for Best Picture.
While Liddell and Abrahams reached the pinnacle of their athletic careers at the ’24 Summer Olympics by winning gold medals in the 400- and 100-meter dashes, respectively, there were two noteworthy athletes from the ’24 Winter Olympics that did not win gold. These two non-champions went on to have quite inspiring and historic careers.
Clarence John “Taffy” Abel was an amateur hockey player from Michigan who was playing in Minnesota with the St. Paul Athletic Club of the United States Amateur Hockey Association when he was selected for the 1924 Olympic hockey team. Abel was the U.S. flag bearer at those first Winter Games. He scored an incredible 15 goals during the games, but the Americans had to settle for second place to the dominant Canadians.
Abel’s silver medal performance did, however, impress the New York Rangers of the NHL enough that they recruited him. He played for them from 1926-29 and then for the Chicago Black Hawks from 1929-34. In 1973, Abel was one of the first inductees into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fall, being a member of two Stanley Cup championship teams.
Clarence Abel’s enduring place in history was assured in 1939 when he revealed for the first time in public that he was Native American with his mother, Charlotte Gurnoe Abel, belonging to the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. We now know that Abel was the first Native American in the Winter Olympics, the NHL and the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.
Another inspiring athlete from Chamonix 1924 who also has had some retrospective fame was Anders Haugen. Haugen was a Norwegian-born ski jumper who moved to the United States in 1908 when he was 20 years old. He won four American national ski jumping championships and set three American records between 1911 and 1920.
Haugen did quite well on Team USA at Chamonix and finished in fourth place, just missing a medal. Or so he thought. In 1974, at the 50th reunion of the Norwegian Olympic ski team, sports historian Jacob Vaage was reviewing the results and caught an error.
Haugen did correctly receive 17.916 points, Vaage found, but bronze medalist Thorleif Haug from Norway had received only 17.821 points — not the 18.000 that he was originally given. Haugen had won the bronze Olympic medal by 0.095 points!
The Chamonix and Paris Olympiads happened a century ago. The legacy of those games will continue July 26 with the opening of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. While Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams were Olympic champions and Clarence Abel and Anders Haugen were not, it could be argued that the latter pair laid a foundation for equally significant places in history when they participated in the first Winter Olympics.
Dave Berger, of Maple Grove, is a retired sociology professor, freelance writer and author.
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