Many of the European delegations making the long journey across the Atlantic for the 1932 Olympics devised inventive ways to keep their team members fit during the gruelling voy-age.

The men’s pole vault at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam was less of a guessing game about which nation would provide the winner, more a matter of which American would claim the ultimate glory.

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.

At the tender age of just 17, American Lee Barnes went to the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris with minimal expectations.

Jim Thorpe is now widely acknowledged as one of the most talented all-round athletes of the 20th century. His successes in Stockholm were clouded in controversy for many years, but they can now be enjoyed for the superb pieces of sporting achievement that they were.