Olympic Games Antwerp
The Olympic flag with the five rings was flown for the first time. The opposition for the British tug-of-war team in Antwerp was definitely less than in the previous Games in Stockholm as the Swedish tug of war team did not participate. The new opponents came from Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. The London Bobbies defeated Belgium, Netherlands and Italy in straight pulls and won their second gold medal in the Olympics. The last match between Belgium and Netherlands for the silver medal was a real contest. The first pull was won by the Netherlands. The second pull took twice as much time as the first pull, but the Netherlands team also won the second pull. Whilst the British teams were very much used to winning Olympic medals, the silver medal for the Netherlands team was thefirst and only Olympic silver medal. The Belgium team was very content with their Olympic bronze medal.
End of the Olympic episode of tug of war
The Antwerp Games were the last Olympics for the Tug of War sport, as the IOC in their Session in August 1920 took the decision to remove tug of war from the program "in order to bring about a reduction in the number of sports on the Olympic program"
