During all of the years that the Olympics gave out medals in arts, not just athletics — and if you didn’t know about that, the rest of this article may hold more surprises — the pinnacle came in Paris, 100 years ago this summer.
The gold medal sculpture at the 1924 Paris Olympics was by a Greek artist named Costas Dimitriadis.
His nude, arching, 7-foot “Discobole” (Discus Thrower) was for weeks displayed prominently in the Grand Palais.
Two years later, before “a crowd of light-frocked women and straw-hatted men,” as The New York Times reported, the prized sculpture, cast in bronze, was planted just outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York’s Central Park.
Persons:
Costas Dimitriadis, ”
Organizations:
Palais, New York Times, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Locations:
Paris, Greek, New