From The Vaults

The Olympic Games in Paris are with us which allows for the study of a little known sporting gem. Keith Gregson tells the strange but true tale of the British rugby players who gained Olympic cricket medals...

A source of inspiration for the modern Olympic movement, rugby featured four times in the early 20th Century before triumphantly returning in the sevens format at Rio in 2016. Here's what happened in 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, 2016 and 2020...

A keen sportsman, he played rugby as a number 8, wing and centre for both Olympique de Paris and Stade Francais, winning the French Championship in 1897, 1898 and 1901.

15 fifteen-a-side rugby had been included as an event at the Olympics since 1900. The founder of the Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, had visited Rugby School in 1883.

In 1892, Baron Pierre de Coubertin made his first speech at the Sorbonne University of Paris, calling for the revival of the International Olympic Games. Such sports exchanges, he said, would be the "new free trade" of Europe.

When the French and United States of America rugby teams walked out onto the pitch at Stade Olympique de Colombes in Paris on Sunday 18 May 1924 for the final of the rugby tournament, few could have anticipated either the extraordinary result of the match or that it would be the last time that rugby would feature in the Olympic Games until 2016, ninety two years later.