The 1904 Olympics were right here in St. Louis, and the city has a rich Olympic history. Without the innovations during those games, and at the 1904 World's fair, the Olympics may have folded.
5 On Your Side's Annie Krall spoke with an acclaimed Olympics historian who is taking that message to France this week.
St. Louis's Michael Loynd literally has a seat at the international Olympics planning table thanks to the 1904 games. He said that after St. Louis grabbed the hosting spot from Chicago, change was coming.
Loynd is the chairman of the St. Louis Sports Commission and sat down with Krall before his Thursday flight to Paris to talk about the World Union of Olympic Cities, which includes St. Louis.
"Every Olympic city, so going back to Athens in 1896, has a spot on the World Union of Olympic cities," Loynd said.
Each city sends two delegates every year to discuss infrastructure and future Olympics.
2024's meeting in November is in Lausanne, Switzerland and headquarters of the International Olympic Committee.
However, this week Loynd is planning to meet with some of the World Union leaders in Paris.
He's unpacking history as author of "The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man's Fight to Capture Olympic Gold." It's a book about the 1904 St. Louis Olympics and the birth of modern swimming.
After his book was published, Loynd was asked to join the International Society of Olympic Historians. It's a group of about 100 researchers started by a physician in the U.S., Loynd said.
Loynd loves talking about the early 20th-century Olympics, emphasizing that in the early 1900s, any international travel was almost exclusively reserved for the very wealthy and was a much more arduous process.
The St. Louis chairman added that the Olympics were on life support after Paris in 1900 and needed a drastic shift, which the Missouri city would make.
"It was more of a curious oddity at the time," Loynd said. "Sports was really in its infancy. Sports didn't really start until after the Civil War because people started having leisure time. Once they started having leisure time."
Tug-of-war is one sport Loynd would love to see come back. Yet, that's not one of the upcoming changes for the I.O.C. since "they're also starting to do where they have two cities hosting one game," Loynd said.
The 2026 Winter Olympics are in Milan and Cortina d' Ampezzo in Italy.
"They're both about five or six hours away," Loynd said. "There are different trends that they're doing."
Loynd shared he has tickets to see a legendary swimmer: Katie Ledecky.
Ledecky is competing in the 800m and 1500m freestyle, chasing the title of most decorated female Olympic swimmer ever. Loynd said he always cries in those big race moments, especially the last 50m.
It's likely something that will happen again with his family in Paris.