The United States Men’s Gymnastics Team in training for the Olympics? Or
a group of Norfolk men working out at the Eldridge Gymnasium (now Town
Hall)? Any one of the men in this 1896 photograph might have participated
in the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece in April of that
year. There were no national Olympic trials; rather anyone with ambition
and the means of getting there could compete. Some were even tourists who
happened to be in the area during the Games. Nine sports were contested
including gymnastics. Although we have no record of the innate abilities of
the men in this photograph, they did have to hold their pose for the camera,
no small feat for the instructor doing a handstand on the parallel bars.

Ann Havemeyer