124 years later, the IOC reallocates a silver medal to France

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games have not yet started and France already has one more medal this year in its Summer Olympic list of achievements. The silver trinket, which Lloyd Hildebrand won at the Paris Olympics in 1900 and which had long fallen into the hands of England, has just been awarded to France by the IOC Executive Board at its meeting held in Lausanne (Switzerland).

British athlete but registered by a French club

This new medal, the French sport owes it to the painstaking work of Stéphane Gachet, researcher specializing in Olympic history and recent author of “Summer Olympics, all French medalists from 1896 to the present day”. While working on the biography of each of the French medalists, this Nantais noted an irregularity.

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Lloyd Hildebrand was indeed a British citizen 124 years ago when he took second place on the podium in the French capital in the 25km event. But this tracker with a name Frenchified as Louis, a merchant tailor established in Levallois-Perret, in Hauts-de-Seine, had grown up in France, had married a French woman on our territory, had participated in competitions for a French club before and after the 1900 Paris Games. However, more than a century ago, any medal had to be attributed to the assets of the National Olympic Committee of the territory in which the club which had registered the athlete was based, in occurrence France even if Hildebrand was born English. For some unknown reason, Britain had reclaimed this honor.

An injustice against which Stéphane Gachet spoke out by writing a letter a few months ago to Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee, copying Emmanuel Macron and the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. He received no response from the Élysée or the Ministry of Sports but the IOC carefully studied the request and the evidence sent by the French researcher. “There was no possible dispute and the IOC logically responded favorably to my request“, says the amused author, who had, in his book, included Lloyd Hildebrand among the 1266 athletes who offered France one or more medals at the Summer Olympics, against the official story.

Britain accepts with fair play

A good sport, the British Olympic Committee did not seek to cause controversy, considering that the medal did indeed go to France. We were aware of the change in the medal status and have already benefited from it ourselves in such circumstances. We will try to win one back later this summer!” said a spokesperson.

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