Olympics history | The British Newspaper Archive Blog

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

With the 2024 Paris Olympics in full swing this week, we thought we’d take a look back at some Olympic history from the pages of our Archive, as we shine a light on the 1908 London Olympics and the controversial marathon race which took place during that competition. Moreover, of course, we have some fantastic new pages added to our collection for you this week, with 360,841 brand new pages joining us in total, with one brand new newspaper being

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Exploring the Real ‘Chariots of Fire’ – As Reported in Our Newspapers

Nearly one hundred years ago athletes Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell took the Olympic Games and the world by storm, their heroics on the track immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. But how were Abrahams’s and Liddell’s record-breaking feats reported on in the newspapers of the time? Were they celebrated in, say, the same way we celebrate our sporting heroes of today? In this special blog, we will explore the headlines behind the real Chariots of Fire, and in the

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‘A Pageant of Peace’ – Overcoming Adversity and Austerity at the 1948 London Olympic Games

With the scars of the Second World War still visible across Great Britain, in 1948 the eyes of the world turned to the country who were set to host the fourteenth Olympiad. Would Britain be able to manage, just three years after the end of the crippling conflict that still saw rationing in place, and bomb sites across its towns and cities? The 14th Olympiad opens at London | Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News | 11 August 1948 In this special blog,

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