1924 Paris

More rigorous organisation came to the Games. Amsterdam wanted to be host, but De Coubertin returned to Paris with the intention of putting the IOC’s stamp on the Games, unlike in 1900 where the French added events unilaterally. Individual sport’s international federations assumed responsibility for organising their competitions for the first time too.

There was split between Meulan on the Seine and Le Havre, as in 1900. And from Antwerp’s plethora of classes, only three were used: 6- and 8-metres and Twelve-Voetsjol dinghy.

The 1921 IOC conference in Lausanne urged the adoption of one-designs, but dinghy racing on the upper Seine was unsatisfactory. And with big disparities between the boats, the IOC’s aim that “the sporting instrument should count for nothing” in the results was not met.

Still, Belgian Leon Huybrechts finally got a gold medal whilst Norway’s August Ringvold won a second successive gold in the 8-metre class.

1924 was not a great regatta. Strong winds, interspersed with calms, saw to that at Le Havre. There the racing was organised in the format of qualifying round, semi finals and final.

On the concluding day Sir Ernest Rooney had to race his 8-metre Emily shorthanded with only two of his four amateur hands. The others were first thwarted by the cancellation of the steamer service from Trouville, where they were staying, and then by a puncture to the car they had chartered.

The two eventually arrived five minutes after Emily crossed the start line but the race committee agreed that they could be put aboard, but Emily lost time in slowing down to let the launch catch her up. Emily took the silver.

Some 19 countries contested the yachting, including Cuba, Argentina and South Africa.

1928 Amsterdam

Amsterdam got its chance as host at last, with the racing taking place on what is now the enclosed Ijsselmeer, but was then the open Zuiderzee, midway between the bad floods of 1916 and the closing off of the North Sea in 1932.

Germany returned to the Games and women were allowed to compete in Track and Field events for the first time.

Crown Prince Olav continued Norway’s steady run of medals, which started in 1908 with victory in the 6-metre class so becoming the first member of a Royal household to win an Olympic medal. His son, Harald, was later to try and repeat this success in the 1964-1972 Games.

1932 Los Angeles

The USA had applied as early as 1920 to host the Games and twelve years they came to Los Angeles. The sailing competition was down the Californian coast at Long Beach along with the rowing. In post-Depression USA, the Games needed a lot of subsidy and it saw the first Olympic Village built.

The 6- and 8-Metre classes were carried over, but the una-rigged Snowbird replaced the Twelve-Voetsjol as the single-handed dinghy. Supplied by the Americans, all three medals went to Europeans with the gold won by Jacques Lebrun of Belgium. In fact, the American Snowbird competitor, Charles Lyon, was the only one in the US team not to win a medal.

Making its debut was the Star two-person keelboat, so beginning the longest run of any class in the Games, broken only in 1976 when the Star was supplanted by the Tempest for one regatta.

The subsidies were not sufficient to lure Sixes and Eights from Europe, save for Swede Tore Holm who won his second gold in the 6-metre class following his 1920 victory in the 40 Square Metre class. Indeed with only three Sixes and two Eights – from USA and Canada – every entrant ‘earned’ a medal.

The Stars were originally slated as an exhibition, but in a seven race series Gilbert Gray of New Orleans and his crew Andrew Labino scored five 1sts to claim the gold. In fact the Stars class got its hooks really into Olympic sailing for Snowbird winner Lebrun sailed a Star and silver medallist behind Gray, British sailmaker Colin Ratsey, kept one of his two Stars in New York.

Among the competitors was France’s Jean Peytel, later to play a prominent role in offshore racing in developing the One Ton Cup  IOR level rating championship.

1936

The Games were awarded to Berlin before the rise to power of the National Socialist Party. But they will always be remembered as ‘Hitler’s Olympics’. Boycotts were proposed yet the 37 nations in the USA turned into 48 in Germany. There were reasons to remember 1936 quite apart from the politics. It was the first televised Games with transmissions relayed into the viewing halls. And Leni Riefenstahl made her superlative film Olympischen Spiele, still critically acclaimed.

Yachting took place at Kiel with Olympic Jolle replacing the Snowbird as the organiser-supplied dinghy class. The boats were rotated amongst competitors between events so established the equal-equipment ethos still in favour today. Daniel Kagghelland of the Netherlands won the gold with Peter Scott taking the bronze after retiring from the last race for contact with Germany’s Werner Krogmann. Scott was later world renowned as a naturalist. His father was Capt Robert Falcon Scott, of Antarctic fame.

Italy’s first ever medal, a gold, was won by Giovanni Leone-Reggio in the 8-Metre class with Briton Charles Leaf winning the Sixes in his new Nicholson design, despite not winning an race. In a breezy series, with mainsails often reefed, Leaf’s crew showed great boathandling. Taking bronze in the Star fleet was Willem de Vries Lentsch, later to become a distinguished motor yacht designer.