The Games were held in weather conditions that were unpredictable to say the least. The Opening Ceremony, held at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday 11 February 1928, took place in a blizzard. As the snow fell, 1,200 officials and participants paraded before the members of the IOC and the COS, with the assembled dignitaries including the President of the Swiss Confederation Edmund Schulthess and Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the prince consort of the Netherlands, who was representing Amsterdam, the host city of the Summer Games later that year.

“Winter sports were included on the Olympic Charter in 1894 along with other sports, and I have worked tirelessly ever since to introduce them on the programme, albeit mindful of the material difficulties that need to be overcome in order to achieve that,” wrote Pierre de Coubertin, whose hard work finally came to fruition in the 1920s.

Villa Ritola was an intrinsic part of the Finnish long-distance running dynasty that held sway at the Olympic Games of the 1920s.

The 1924 Olympic Games held in Paris are probably best remembered for two things; the exploits of the athletes marked in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, and the breathtaking achievements of Finnish running machine Paavo Nurmi. Yet one all-round American athlete could have rightly left the Games thinking he had made the most indelible mark on events in the Olympic Stadium.

The regatta at the Olympics Games in Paris in 1924 were held at Le Havre, and will not go down as one of the greatest in the history of the competition. Four years after 14 classes competed at the Antwerp Games, only three classes were in competition on the choppy waters of the English Channel.  

Look back at some of the competitors from the Olympic Games from the 1920s and 1930s, and the passage of time does not flatter. Some athletes can look pedestrian against the ultra-trained competitors of today, but the throwing action of Jonni Myyra would have been a class act in any generation.  

Given American dominance in the 400m hurdles over the years, it’s hard to believe the event was run so rarely in the 1920s. The ultimate test of sprinting endurance and perfectly timed stride patterns was only held at national collegiate level in the US during Olympic years.

Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe revived British domination of men’s middle distance running in the 1980s, some sixty years after another group of runners had also led the world.

Of all the Olympic gold medals won over the years, few have been as well documented, chronicled and dramatised quite like Eric Liddell’s.  

There are some landmarks in the Olympic annals that the passage of time and the development of sport render a repeat almost unthinkable.