Talk:1936 FIRA Tournament

So, if it wasn´t a demonstration sport, at what purpose was held a rugby union tournament at the 1936 Summer Olympics ? This needs more research.Mistico (talk) 00:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The Rugby union at the Summer Olympics lists a couple of sources for this. It seems that a tournament of some sort was held, at the same time as the Olympics. Here's a quote from Rugby Football at the Olympic Games, one of the sources on that page. (available in PDF here).

Less well-known is the fact that a tournament of some significance took place in May 1936 in connection with the Berlin Games. Four teams entered for the tournament and in the first round Germany beat Italy 19-8 and France beat Romania 25-5. In the final on 17 May, Germany gave a remarkable good performance before losing 19-14 to France and in the play-off for third place, Italy just beat Romania 8-7.

This was undoubtedly the best organized and most international Olympic rugby tournament to date and the fact that the final was refereed by A. Van der Merwe of South Africa gave further prestige to the competition. For some reason, 1936 Olympic rugby has never been accorded the status of an official “demonstration” event and for the time being is perhaps best described as an “affiliated” event rather along the lines of the 1936 golf match reported on by Bill Mallon in the Journal of Olympic History (Vol. 1, No. 3).

I don't think the title is appropriate; but, as a tournament, it likely passes notability tests, so, I'm removing the PROD. Neier (talk) 12:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)