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1907 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

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1907 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
LocationKingdom of Bohemia Prague, Bohemia
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The 3rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships were held in Prague, Bohemia, in conjunction with the 5th Czech Sokol Slet on 30 June 1907.[1][2][3][4]

A historic signpost in the sometimes contentious politics of the sport occurred with respect to these championships. In a 100-year Anniversary Publication of the International Federation of Gymnastics, a past observation of Dr. Miroslav Klinger, an honorary member of the FIG, was noted with regards to a German magazine article. In that FIG publication, it is written that an article in a 1907 issue of the German publication Deutsche Turnzeitung "dissuaded the non-slavic nations from participating in the international competition in Prague, by saying the competitors could be threatened by violence. The goal of the article was to pressure the president of the European Federation into the renunciation of the Prague event. Nevertheless, the German Federation sent observers to Prague."[1]

The championships were purely team events without any individual awards. Individual all-round scores were only introduced in 1922, with the first all-round individual men's champion being recognised in that year. Individual apparatus scores were introduced subsequently.[5] As such no actual individual medals were awarded at these games, the below rankings were conferred retrospectively.[6]

Conversely, please note that contemporaneous, detailed coverage, beyond merely team totals, of select World Championships prior to World War I exists both in the pages of “Slovenski Sokol” magazine (via the Digital Library of Slovenia) and in reproductions of apparently original and contemporaneous Czech source materials (via Gymnastics-History.com) for both the 3rd (1907)[7][8] and 6th (1913)[9][10] editions of the World Championships. In the Czech versions of those sources, reproduced by Gymnastics-History.com, both individual all-around scores and apparatus scores are presented for every competitor, and in the Slovenian versions of those sources, individual all-around scores and rankings are reproduced for the top 14 and very last-place competitor for the 1907 Worlds and for every competitor at the 1913 Worlds. Additionally, all of the data that is presented in each of those sources completely matches the data that both the FIG[11]: 61–63  and USAG[12] (the official governing body of the sport of Artistic gymnastics within the USA) present in their respective treatments on the results of these pre-WWI World Championships, with the sole two exceptions of the horizontal bar placing of French Gymnast Francois Vidal and the parallel bars placement of Belgian gymnast Paul Mangin, both at the 1907 World Championships.[13][11]: 62  (In any event, all of these data sources - the Slovenian records, the Gymnastics-History.com's reproduced Czech records, the FIG's records, and the USAG's records - have continually failed to recognize the apparent original human error with respect to the discrepancy between Vidal's and Mangin's scores and rankings. In light of that, all of these data sources remain completely consistent, in terms of the data that they do present, with respect to the results of the pre-WWI editions of these World Championships.)

Additionally, please note that in lieu of an article published in the 10 June 2024 issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport (a peer-reviewed journal) claiming that the BFEG’s (the FIG’s predecessor) archives from before 1950 appear to have been lost,[14] a brief biographical treatment containing a photograph of multiple medals belonging to 1911 World All-Around Champion Ferdinand Steiner on the website of an alma mater of his, the Jiří Wolkera Gymnasium [cs], shows multiple medals with the words "Concorso Ginnastico Internazionale 1911 Torino" embossed onto them.[15] This brief biographical treatment was published at least as far back as 14 January 2017 on the official[16] Facebook website of his alma mater in a photograph album, begun on 29 November 2016, containing other such brief biographical treatments of its notable alumni.[17] That pictoral presentation of Steiner’s medals helps suggest that individual medals were awarded for those 1911 World Championships as they were from the same locale and year as the 1911 Worlds, and with the original title of the competition being printed on those medals, this further helps suggest that these individual medals were awarded contemporaneously.

Medals

[edit]
RankNationGoldSilverBronzeTotal
1 Bohemia (BOH)4138
2 France (FRA)2327
3 Belgium (BEL)0011
Totals (3 entries)64616
Note

Official FIG documents credit medals earned by athletes from Bohemia as medals for Czechoslovakia.[4]

Team Competition

[edit]
Rank Nation Gymnast Preliminaries Events Gymnastics Events Athletics Events Individual Grand Totals Team Scores Team Grand Totals
1st Prelim 2nd Prelim 3rd Prelim 4th Prelim 5th Prelim Prelim Totals Prelim Totals Rank Comp. Opt. Totals Comp. Opt. Totals Comp. Opt. Totals Gymnastics Events Totals Gymnastics Events Totals Rank Long Jump Weight Lifting 150 meters Athletics Totals Athletics Totals Rank Grand Totals Grand Totals Rank Team Exercise Grand Totals Team Behavior Final Grand Totals
1st place, gold medalist(s)  Bohemia Josef Čada 10 9.5 9 9 10 47.5 6 9.25 11.5 20.75 11.25 11.75 23 9.5 10.5 20 63.75 4 20 20 16 56 1 167.25 1 944.5 6.75 951.25
František Erben 9.5 9.25 9.75 9 9.25 46.75 9 8.5 12 20.5 11.75 12 23.75 10.75 11.5 22.25 66.5 1 12 16 16 44 22 157.25 3
Karel Starý 9 8.5 9 9 9 44.5 17 8.75 10 18.75 11 11.75 22.75 10 8.75 18.75 60.25 10 12 20 20 52 5 156.75 4
Karel Sál 8.75 9 9 8.25 9 44 21 8.75 9.5 18.25 10.25 11.5 21.75 10.5 10.25 20.75 60.75 9 14 20 16 50 7 154.75 6
Josef Seidl 9.75 8.75 9 8.75 10 46.25 12 9.25 11 20.25 8 10.5 18.55 9.5 10 19.5 58.25 13 14 20 16 50 7 154.5 7
Bohumil Honzátko 8 9.25 9.5 9 9.25 45 15 8 11 19 8 11.25 19.25 9.75 8 17.75 56 16 20 17 16 53 4 154 9
Totals: - - - - - 275 - - - 119.50 - - 113 60 59 119 - - 92 113 100 - - 944.5
2nd place, silver medalist(s)  France Jules Rolland 9.25 9 9.5 9.75 9.75 47.25 7 9 11 20 11.5 12 23.5 10.5 10.5 21 64.55 2 14 17 16 47 13 158.75 2 915.5 7.5 923
Francois Vidal† 9.75 9.75 9.25 9.75 9.75 48.25 3 10.5 7 17.5 12 12 24 10 10.25 20.25 61.75 7 14 14 18 46 15 156 5
Georges Charmoille 9 9 9.5 8.5 9.5 45.5 13 7.75 10.75 18.5 11.75 12 23.75 8.75 8 16.75 59 12 20 13 14 47 13 151.5 11
Joseph Castigliani 8.75 9 8.5 9 9.5 44.75 16 9.5 9.75 19.25 11.75 10.5 22.25 10 10.25 20.25 61.75 7 12 20 16 48 11 154.5 7
Louis Ségura 10 9.75 9.75 9.75 10 49.25 1 10.75 9.75 20.5 11 12 23 8.5 11 19.5 63 5 10 10 16 36 32 148.25 13
Joseph Lux [fr] 9.5 10 9.5 9 10 48 4 10.25 11.5 21.75 11 12 23 9.5 10.25 19.75 64.5 2 6 14 14 34 35 146.5 15
Totals: - - - - - 284.50 - - - 119.50 - - 141.50 57.25 60.25 117.5 - - 76 88 94 - - 915.5
3rd place, bronze medalist(s)  Belgium Louis de Winter 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.25 9.25 47 8 5.75 8 13.75 9.75 10.75 20.5 11.25 8.25 19.50 53.75 19 14 20 18 52 5 152.75 10 864.25 8 872.25
Leo Pauvels 8.75 9 9.5 10 6 43.25 23 8.5 10.5 19 11 11.5 22.5 10.75 9.75 20.5 62 6 14 16 16 46 15 151.25 12
Charles Lannie 9.25 9 9.5 9.25 9.5 46.5 10 7 10 17 10 10 20 9.75 8.75 18.50 55.5 17 10 20 16 46 15 148 14
Pol Giesenfeld 9 10 9.5 10 10 48.5 2 8 10 18 11 11.5 22.5 8.75 7 15.75 56.25 15 10 15 14 39 28 143.75 17
Paul Mangin† 8.5 9.25 9 9.5 9 45.25 14 7.75 8 15.75 11 11.75 22.75 11.25 9.75 21 59.5 11 12 11 14 37 29 141.75 19
Henri Carsan 8 8.75 8.25 8.75 8.5 42.25 27 3.75 5.5 9.25 6.75 8 14.75 10.25 9.5 19.75 43.75 25 8 18 14 40 26 126 27
Totals: - - - - - 274.75 - - - 94.75 - - 125 62 53 115 - - 68 100 92 - - 864.25
4  Luxembourg Nikol Kanive 8.75 7.5 7.5 7.25 8.75 39.75 28 5.5 7.75 13.25 10.25 11 21.25 7.5 6.5 14 48.5 21 18 18 18 54 2 142.25 18 782 6.75 788.75
André Bordaug 9.5 9.5 9.75 9.75 9.5 48 4 7.25 8.75 16 2 11.25 13.25 6.5 6.5 13 42.25 28 12 18 16 46 15 136.25 20
Guillaume Hary 8 8 8 6 8 38 30 9 7 16 10.25 11.75 22 7 6 13 51 20 12 20 14 46 15 135 21
Charles Behm 6.5 7 6.25 4 6.5 30.25 36 6.25 7 13.25 9.5 9 18.5 7.25 6 13.25 45 23 12 20 18 50 7 125.25 28
Nikolaus Kummer 9.5 8.75 8.5 7 9.75 43.5 22 8.25 7.25 15.5 6 10 16 6.5 5.75 12.25 43.75 25 6 15 16 37 29 124.25 30
Ernes Greiveldinger 7.5 8 8 7 7.5 38 30 4 9.25 13.25 2 11.25 13.25 7.5 6 13.5 40 32 10 20 16 46 15 124 31
Totals: - - - - - 239 - - - 84.25 - - 106.25 42.25 36.75 79 - - 70 111 98 - - 782
5  Slovenia Albin Kandare 8 9 9.25 9 9.25 44.5 17 7.25 9.5 16.75 11.5 11.75 23.25 9.75 8.5 18.25 58.25 13 6 20 16 42 24 144.75 34 765.25 6 771.25
Dr. Viktor Murnik [sl] 8 8 8 7.5 7 38.5 29 6.5 8 14.5 10.5 11.25 21.75 9 9 18 54.25 18 10 20 12 42 24 134.75 22
Anton Thaler 8 8.75 8.5 9 9.25 43.25 23 4 7 11 8 10.75 18.75 8 7.25 15.25 45 23 6 9 12 37 29 125.25 28
Fran Miklavk 8 7.5 7.75 7.75 6.5 37.5 33 5 6.75 11.75 2 8.5 10.5 8.75 10.5 19.25 41.5 29 14 15 14 43 23 122 32
Vladimir Deklevek 9 9.25 9 8.5 8.75 44.5 17 6 6 12 2 10 12 8.25 8 16.25 40.25 31 10 11 14 35 33 119.75 33
Josip Rihar 9.5 8.75 9 9.5 9.75 46.5 10 4.75 6.5 11.25 2 7 9 8 9 17 37.25 33 10 15 10 35 33 118.75 34
Totals: - - - - - 256 - - - 78.25 - - 97.25 51.75 52.25 104 - - 56 100 78 - - 765.25
6  Hungary Nandor Kovats 8.75 9 8.75 9.25 8.75 44.5 17 4.25 8.75 13 2 10.5 12.5 8 7.5 15.5 41 30 12 20 16 48 11 133.5 23 727.25 6 733.25
Lajos Kmetykó 8.75 8.75 8.25 7.5 9.25 42.5 26 2.75 7.25 10 2 9 11 8.75 5.5 14.25 35.25 34 20 16 18 54 2 131.75 24
János Kmetykó 7.5 7.5 8 7.5 7.5 38 30 4.75 7 11.75 10 8 18 6.25 7.5 13.75 43.5 27 16 20 14 50 7 131.5 25
Lakatos Bela 7 6.5 7.5 7 8 36 34 8.25 10.5 18.75 6.5 8.5 15 5.5 6.75 12.25 46 22 16 12 18 46 15 128 26
Hándor Bak 8.5 9.75 8 7.5 9 42.75 25 2.5 4.5 7 1 10 11 6.75 6 12.75 30.75 35 14 12 14 40 27 113.5 35
Karoly Bajor 6 7 6.5 6 6.75 32.25 35 2.75 4 6.75 1 5.5 6.5 6.5 5 11.5 24.75 36 6 10 16 32 36 89 36
Totals: - - - - - 237.50 - - - 68.25 - - 76 41.75 38.25 80 - - 84 90 96 - - 727.25

[13]

All Round

[edit]
Rank Athlete Total
1. Bohemia Josef Cada 167.250
2. France Jules Rolland 158.750
3. Bohemia Frantisek Erben 157.250

High Bar

[edit]
Ranlk Athlete Total
1. France Georges Charmoille 23.750
1. Bohemia Frantisek Erben 23.750
3. France Jules Rolland 23.500

†=The website Gymnastics-History.com, in a blog entry about the 1907 World Championships, states that "In 125 Years of the FIG: The Story Goes on, the FIG lists Erben and Charmoille as the high bar champions. That is a mistake, given that [Francois] Vidal had a perfect 24 on high bar" and goes on to reproduce apparently original source material therein identified as "V. slet všesokolský 1907: pamětní list vydaný" that replicates that fact."[13] As it currently stands now, the FIG fails to recognize Vidal as a medalist, much less a champion, on this event.[11]: 62  In other areas of this competition, also, Vidal was one of the highest scorers.

Parallel bars

[edit]
Rank Athlete Total
1. France Joseph Lux 21.750
2. Bohemia Josef Cada 20.750
3. France Louis Ségura 20.500
3. Bohemia Frantisek Erben 20.500

Pommel Horse

[edit]
Rank Athlete Total
1. Bohemia Frantisek Erben 22.250
2. France Jules Rolland 21.000
3. Bohemia Karel Sál 20.750

†=Belgian Paul Mangin’s combined score of 21 on the Pommel Horse apparatus should have garnered him a tied-for-silver finish (with Jules Rolland of France), and also dropped Bohemian Karel Sál out of the medal-place finishes, however none of this is indicated in the FIG’s record, as it currently stands.[11]: 61 

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Huguenin, Andre. 100 Years of the International Gymnastics Federation: 1881-1981 (PDF). Translated by Unger, Beatrice. International Gymnastics Federation. p. 79.
  2. ^ "Historical Medalists - Individual". Archived from the original on 2016-10-09. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  3. ^ "Historical Medalists - Team". Archived from the original on 2016-10-09. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  4. ^ a b Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (2005). 125th Anniversary - The story goes on... (PDF). FIG. pp. 61–62.
  5. ^ 100 Years of the International Gymnastics Federation 1881-1981 (PDF). FIG. 1981. p. 76. Retrieved 28 April 2025.
  6. ^ "1903: Men's Gymnastics at the First World Championships". Gymnastics History. 25 January 2022. Retrieved 28 April 2025.
  7. ^ Murnik, Viktor (Dr.), ed. (25 March 1908). "Telovadba na zletu v Pragi" [Gymnastics on the runway in Prague]. Slovenski Sokol (in Slovenian). Vol. 5, no. 3. pp. 20–21. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  8. ^ History.com, Gymnastics. "1907: Perfect Scores Abound at the World Championships in Prague". Gymnastics-History.com. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  9. ^ Murnik, Viktor (Dr.), ed. (25 December 1913). "Slovenci na mednarodni tekmi v Parizu" [Slovenians at an international competition in Paris]. Slovenski Sokol (in Slovenian). Vol. 10, no. 12. pp. 13–14. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  10. ^ History.com, Gymnastics. "1913: The Last World Championships before World War I". Gymnastics-History.com. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  11. ^ a b c d Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (2005). 125th Anniversary - The story goes on... (PDF). FIG.
  12. ^ "Event History > World Championships – Men's Past Champions". usagym.org. Indianapolis, IN, USA: USA Gymnastics. Retrieved May 28, 2025.
  13. ^ a b c History.com, Gymnastics. "1907: Perfect Scores Abound at the World Championships in Prague". Gymnastics-History.com. Retrieved April 14, 2024.
  14. ^ Vonnard, Philippe; Mayencourt, Gil. "Building European Fraternity Through Gymnastics: The Establishment of the Bureau Des Fédérations Européennes de Gymnastiques, 1863–1913". Taylor and Francis Online. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  15. ^ "Slavní absolventi naší školys" [Famous graduates of our school]. Gymnázium_Jiřího_Wolkera. Retrieved April 29, 2025.
  16. ^ "Gymnázium Jiřího Wolkera Homepage". Gymnázium_Jiřího_Wolkera. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
  17. ^ ""Ferdinand Steiner " (in Zapomenutí rodáci města Prostějova (Forgotten Natives of the City of Prostějov))". Official Facebook Account of Gymnázium Jiřího Wolkera Prostějov (in Czech). 14 January 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2025.
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