Rugby union at the 1908 Summer Olympics in the last week of Games that had taken place over six months. In 1908 Twickenham Stadium was still being built. The match was played at the White City Stadium, London, on an area alongside the Olympic Games swimming pool which measured 110 yards in length with a long line of netting stretched beside to catch flying balls. Large mattresses were spread along the rim of the pool to prevent injuries to falling players. One day was allocated to what was called the Olympic rugby tournament. The game was rather a damp squib and took place in a thick mid
Summer Olympic Games from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896, to 306 events with 11,238 competitors (6,179 men, 5,059 women) from 206 nations in 2016. The Summer Olympics has been hosted on five continents by a total of nineteen countries. The United States has hosted the Games four times (in 1904, 1932, 1984 and 1996); this is more times than any other nation. The Games have been held three times in the United Kingdom (in 1908, 1948 and 2012); twice each in Greece (1896, 2004), France (1900, 1924), Germany (1936, 1972) and Australia (1956, 2000);