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Friday, December 2, 2022

Stockholm 1912





 

I found this on a vintage sports website labeled "Australasian Swim Team."
Did Australia, New Zealand, and surrounding territories have a combined team back then?

5 comments:

  1. Those suits are shockingly revealing for the era. Indeed, they show more than many of today's board shorts! I can imagine that more than one spectator came to watch more than the swimming.

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  2. The answer is, yes, Australia and New Zealand competed in combined teams in the 1908 and 1912 Summer Olympics under the team name of Australasia. 1908 was the first time New Zealand fielded competitors, the fourth for Australia. As the 1912 Olympics took place in Stockholm, Sweden, we can safely date this photo to between 27 April to 31 October 1908, and we know that it is London, given the policeman's uniform behind. Just as a matter of interest, the New Zealand constitution as a Dominion under the British Crown - the late Queen Elizabeth was also declared "Queen of New Zealand" in her own right - allows for New Zealand to become a state of the Australian Federation if ever there were a parliamentary vote in favour of union.

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    1. I beg your pardon. Filing this image, I enlarged it to find that that is not a Metropolitan Police uniform - although superficially, very similar. It may in fact be a military uniform, as Swedish police officers wore a raised cap. We may then safely date this image to between 6 July and 22 July, 1912. Jerry, you may like to know that in the swimming, Hawaiian Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku (August 24, 1890 – January 22, 1968) won the 100 metre freestyle for the United States. Do look him up. He surfed in a splendid singlet!

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    2. Duke Kahanamoku is a here here in Hawaii and has been immortalized in several bronze statues around Honolulu. One of those shows him seated nude, and I do have pictures of him in a singlet.

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