1908 Summer Olympics 1908 Summer Olympics The 1908 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the IV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in 1908 in London, United Kingdom from 27 April to 31 October 1908. These games were originally scheduled to be held in Rome, but were re-located on financial grounds following a disastrous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906. They were the fourth chronological modern Olympic Games in keeping with the now-accepted four-year cycle as opposed to the alternate four-year cycle of the proposed Intercalated Games. The IOC president for these Games was Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Lasting a
Water motorsports at the 1908 Summer Olympics Water motorsports at the 1908 Summer Olympics At the 1908 Summer Olympics, three motorboat racing events were contested. Various sources refer to the sport as "water motorsports", "motor boats", and "power boating". These Games were the only one to feature motorized sports; although it was featured in 1900, those events were deemed by the IOC in later years to be non-Olympic. All three events used the same distance, five laps around an 8 nautical mile course for a total of . In each of the events, multiple boats started but only one finished, due primarily to the gale that was