The Olympic podium is born

The podium has provided many memorable moments in Olympic history and is an iconic symbol for athletes worldwide. Its three steps add to the spectacle of the Olympic Games and are a place where lifelong dreams become reality. Athletes stand atop the steps to celebrate, smile, embrace one another and sometimes cry as they receive their medals and listen to their national anthems.

Over the years, Olympic podiums have come in all shapes and sizes: round, square, narrow and wide. Aside from the numbers 1, 2 and 3 on the steps – an innovation introduced at the Los Angeles 1932 Summer Olympics – they all have one thing in common: the presence of the Olympic rings.

The history of the Olympic podium dates back to the Olympic Winter Games Lake Placid 1932, when US speed skater Jack Shea became the first athlete in history to climb onto the top step to take the Olympic oath. IOC President Count Henri de Baillet-Latour, who presented the medals at the 1932 inaugural medal ceremony, got the idea for the Olympic podium when attending the first Empire Games (the predecessor of the Commonwealth Games) in Hamilton, Canada, two years previously. Inspired by the sight of the top three athletes in the track and field events climbing onto a wooden podium surrounded by rails, he set out to develop his own version for the Olympic Games.

He also drafted a set of directives entitled “Medal presentations, victory ceremonies, flag-raising and loudspeaker announcements”, which provided instructions on how medal ceremonies should be conducted, including the position of the athletes on the podium. These directives were sent out to the Lake Placid 1932 Organising Committee for the Olympic Winter Games.

After Jack Shea took the Olympic oath, he returned to the podium shortly after to accept his gold medal for the 500m event. To his left stood the runner-up, Norway’s Bernt Evensen, with the third-placed athlete, Alexander Hurd of Canada, on Shea’s right. This was against the express instructions of the podium’s creator, IOC President Baillet-Latour. The error was immediately corrected, with the silver medallists standing to the right of the winner and the bronze medallists to the left, for the rest of the Games and forever more.

Shea returned yet again to the top of the podium when he won the 1,500m the day after his 500m triumph, by which time it was draped in the US flag. The speed skaters were the only athletes at Lake Placid 1932 to receive their medals on the podium straight after their events. The remaining medals were handed out at the Closing Ceremony, as had been the custom at the Olympic Games up to that point.