This summer Professor Caroline Vout is co-curating an Olympic Exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, 'Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body' which looks back on the pivotal moment, 100 years ago, when traditions and trailblazers collided, fusing the Olympics’ classical legacy with the European avant-garde spirit. It was a breakthrough that forever changed attitudes towards sporting achievement and celebrity, as well as body image and identity, nationalism and class, race and gender.
One item from the exhibit that has captured the imagination of commentators at the Guardian is the Letter by William DeHart Hubbard, the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal at the tournament. The letter sent to his mother from the SS America and written just an hour before he set sail for Paris, adds to the mythos around an athlete who manifested his own landmark victory.
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