Olympic Centennial Celebration
Olympic Centennial Celebration
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Olympic City: St. Louis
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Country: United States of America
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Edition of the Games: 1904 Olympic Summer Games
The St. Louis Olympic Centennial Celebration was a commemorative public event to mark the 100-year anniversary since the hosting of the 1904 Olympic Games in the City.
This one-off celebration was combined with a range of supporting sporting events throughout the month of June, each of which were strategically selected to increase the positioning of sport within the City and within the lives of its residents. The overall vision behind these proceedings was to promote the city externally as an attractive destination for sporting events while simultaneously increasing the perception of St. Louis as a sporting city internally within its own communities.
Organised by the non-profit St. Louis Sports Commission, the Centennial capitalised on the increased public attention around sport and the Olympics in the lead up to the 2004 Athens Games a few months later. This included the hosting of the United States Olympic trials for both diving and the women’s marathon as part of the celebrations. It also saw the City play a central role in the Athens 2004 global torch relay, being one of only three American cities to take part in what was the first ever international staging of this ceremonial procession.
As well as focusing on the 1904 Games, the organisers used the programme to shine a light on the broader Olympic history of the City and the role it had played in the development of the Olympic movement in the United States. This saw many of the City’s own Olympic athletes, both past and present, invited along to the various events.
The Centennial Celebration was very well received by local citizens and helped to put St. Louis on the map as an event host. Approximately 10,000 members of the public turned out to the official Centennial Celebration while a large number of the local athletes, politicians and businesses that were first engaged by the programme remain heavily involved in sport in the City today.




