Alpinism at the Olympic Games

Everest medals

The first alpinism medals, in 1924, were given to the members of the unsuccessful 1922 British Mount Everest expedition led by Charles Granville Bruce.^[1] They were given out at the closing ceremony of the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix,^[2] but bore the inscription of the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.^[1][3] 21 people: all 13 of the European members of the expedition, the seven porters who died in an avalanche during the ascent and one Nepalese soldier (Tejbir Bura) were awarded medals.^[3][4][5][6] There is some doubt as to whether all awardees, or the porters' families, received them.^[1]

The identities of those who died in the avalanche are recorded in a brief document noting the compensation paid to their families, the names on that document are:

It was recorded that six were ethnic Sherpa and one Bhotia and their dependants were said to be living in Darjeeling, Nepal and Tibet.^[7] The Mount Everest Committee asked the expedition leader, General Bruce, "to see that suitable provision is made for the families of the gallant porters who had served so nobly and fallen in the final assault."^[8]

After the deaths of George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine in 1924 a memorial cairn was erected at the Base Camp used by the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition. In addition to the names of Mallory and Irvine the cairn bears the names of the seven porters who were posthumously awarded the Olympic medals following their deaths in the avalanche of 1922. The exact spelling on the cairn of some of the porter's names differs slightly from the spelling in the records for compensation. The memorial's construction was led by Bentley Beetham and Howard Somervell, they had no cement or proper tools for the job and screwdrivers were used as chisels to inscribe the names of the dead from both the 1921, 1922 and 1924 expeditions.^{[9][10]: 151 [note 1]}

In 2012, mountaineer Kenton Cool took the medal which was awarded to Arthur Wakefield to the summit of Mount Everest, fulfilling a pledge originally made by Lt Col Strutt, who was the deputy leader of the 1922 expedition and the representative who received the medals at the award ceremony in 1924.^[13][14]

Alpine medals

After no medals were given out in 1928, the 1932 prize was awarded to German brothers Franz and Toni Schmid for being the first people to ascend the northern wall of the Matterhorn on August 1, 1931.^[1][15] Toni died on May 16, 1932 while attempting to climb the Wiesbachhorn, but Franz and his father accepted medals on behalf of both brothers in a ceremony on September 5, 1932.^[1]

Dyhrenfurth medals

In 1936, medals were given to Swiss-German climber Günter Dyhrenfurth and his wife Hettie for "a series of remarkable ascents and scientific expeditions in the Himalayas".^[1] According to Olympic rules, only single performances could be considered, so the award was de facto for the pair's 1934 expedition, in which Hettie broke the women's altitude record by climbing 7313 meters.^[1] Despite the 1936 Summer Olympics being held in Berlin, Hettie being Jewish, and the pair having left Germany due to Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the German members of the IOC did not file any objections.^[1] Günter, who was also one-quarter Jewish,^[15] traveled alone to Berlin to accept the award during the 1936 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.^[1] The Dyhrenfurths were nonetheless left out of the Official Report of the Games, which caused Günter to send a letter of protest to the publisher.^[1]

After the 1930s

The IOC agreed to end the prize for alpinism in 1946, following a request from the Swiss.^[1][16] In 1988, the Olympic Order was presented to Reinhold Messner and Jerzy Kukuczka, the first two people to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders.^[17] Messner declined the award, citing mountaineering as a creative activity and not a competition, while Kukuczka accepted it, though simultaneously distinguished it from a real Olympic medal.^[17]