In a Letter to the Crown Prince of Greece and Head of the Greek Olympic Committee, President Theodore Roosevelt Accepts US Participation in the 1906 Games and Agrees to Send What Would Become the First True US National Team

He appoints runner James Sullivan as the first US representative to the Olympics

The 1906 Games may have helped save the Olympic Movement. After the debacles of 1900 and 1904, the Olympics were in desperate straits. The Greeks had wanted to host more Olympics and they proposed holding “interim” Olympics every four years, in the even year between the Olympics. The first of these was scheduled for 1906.

The Games of 1906 were not of the calibre of many Olympics of later years, and many of the facilities were not of the highest quality. However, as in 1896, the Greeks approached their responsibility with enthusiasm and the most international field to date competed in these Olympics. A true Opening Ceremony was conducted for the first time, with the athletes marching with their teams following a flag bearer from their own country. In the United States, a team was selected for the first time and sent over as a true national team.

James Patrick Sullivan was an American middle-distance runner and member of the Irish American Athletic Club. He competed in the 1906 Olympic Games in Athens and the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. He was known as “4:22 Jim” for being the first native-born American to run the mile in the fast time of 4 minutes and 22 seconds at the Metropolitan Championships held at Travers Island in 1905.

Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy is very much tied up with images of outdoorsmanship and athleticism. He was a boxer, wrestler, hiker, and hunter, in addition to his close later association with the nascent game of American baseball.

This letter is America’s acceptance to participate in the 1906 Olympic Games, and the appointment of Sullivan as its chief representative.

Printed letter signed, March 17, 1906, the White House, Washington, to the Crown Prince of Greece and President of the Olympic Games at Athens.

“Your Royal Highness: The Government of His Majesty the King of Greece, upon the suggestion of the Committee presided over by Your Royal Highness, having extended an invitation through his Consul General at New York, to the Government of the United States to be officially represented at the Olympic Games at Athens in 1906, it has given me the pleasure to designate Mr. James E. Sullivan, a prominent athlete of this century, as the Commissioner of the United States to said Games.”