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Extraordinarily rare gold winner’s medal from the St. Louis 1904 Olympics, issued by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) to American gymnast George Eyser for placing first in the rope climbing competition. Solid gold, 31 gm, 44 mm, by Dieges & Clust, New York. The front of the medal depicts the goddess Fortuna on her Rota Fortunae [Wheel of Fortune] and holding a crown of laurels, encircled with raised text: “Amateur Athletic Union of the United States, MDCCCLXXXVIII”; the reverse is engraved with the name of the event, “Rope Climbing,” which is surrounded by sports equipment and the winged foot of Mercury, with text to the upper portion: “Champion.” The reverse also bears the maker’s mark and identifies the medal as “Solid Gold.” The medal bears trivial scuffs. Includes its original red-white-and-blue ribbon, which is in two pieces, the upper section retaining its golden badge with embossed text: “1904, Universal Exposition, Olympic Games, St. Louis.” Both ribbon sections bear toning and small tears. Gold, silver, and bronze medal AAU variants were inadvertently presented as official first-place prizes to an unknown number of podium finishers at the 1904 St. Louis Games, a rare distinction that, coupled with the medal’s recipient and its unusual event, isolates this award into a class all its own.
One of the more remarkable tales of Olympic lore relates to the recipient of this gold medal, American gymnast George Eyser, who secured six medals at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics…in one day…with just one leg. The son of German immigrants who moved to America in 1884, Eyser lost most of his left leg after being run over by a train in a childhood accident. Undeterred, Eyser was fitted with a wooden prosthetic and joined the Concordia Turnverein [Turner] club in the southern suburbs of St. Louis. It was with Concordia that Eyser competed in the 1904 Games; during this period, the gymnastics competition was divided among club teams, not nations.
The 1904 games featured a muddled program of events spread out over several months, and the gymnastics competition was no different. The gymnastic events consisted of two sets, held in two seasons: the International Turners' Championship on July 1 and 2, and the Olympic Gymnastics Championships on October 28th. Although Eyser faired poorly during the July competition, he was more than prepared for the October contests. In a single day, Eyser won three gold medals in the parallel bars, the long-horse vault, and the 25-foot rope climbing, the gold medal for which is offered here. He won three more medals in combined (silver), the horizontal bar (bronze), and the pommel horse (silver), capping off a historically successful day and one of the Olympics’ most inspirational stories. Prior to 2008, Eyser was the only person with an artificial leg to have competed at the Olympic Games.
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