India at the 1900 Summer Olympics Research by Olympic historians has shown that Pritchard was chosen to represent Great Britain after competing in the British AAA championship in June 1900. The IOC still regard Pritchard as having competed for India. Pritchard competed in athletics, entering five events and taking second place in two of them. India at the 1900 Summer Olympics One athlete from India competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, thereby being the nation's first appearance at the modern Olympic Games. Olympic historians tend to separate Indian results from British ones despite India's lack of independence, in a similar manner to the
Olympic Games ceremony the Games of the II Olympiad in Paris in 1900, which had no opening ceremony before as part of the 1900 World's Fair. There are five examples from the United States alone in which the Games were not opened by the head of state. The Olympic Charter provides that the person designated to open the Games should do so by reciting whichever of the following lines is appropriate: Before 1936, the opening official would often make a short welcoming speech before declaring the Games open. However, since 1936, when Adolf Hitler opened both the Garmisch Partenkirchen Winter Olympics and the