Bohemia (BOH)

Bohemia, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, formed a “Bohemian Committee for the Olympic Games” (“Český výbor pro hry olympijské”) in autumn 1896. Two meetings on 1 and 18 May 1899 can be seen as the birth of the National Olympic Committee (NOC). Still provisional, the committee became official on 7 March 1900 which paved the way for Bohemia to take part in the 1900 Olympics. Bohemia also participated in the 1906, 1908, and 1912 Olympics, but missed the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. In 1912 political pressure from Austria forced the committee to change its name to the Austrian-Czech Olympic Committee, and in 1914 the committee was expelled from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a country can have only one NOC, and in October 1916 during World War I the committee was dissolved. The president of the Bohemian NOC Jiří Guth-Jarkovský was also pressured to resign from the IOC, but he never did. After the end of World War I he was a founding member of the NOC of the Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) and served as an IOC Member until his death in 1943.

Bohemia was part of the Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) (1918-1938 and 1945-1960), the Nazi Germany established Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945), the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR) (1960-1990), and the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (ČSFR) (1990-1992), and is part of the Czech Republic (from 1993 onwards).

In total 60 athletes competed for Bohemia between 1900 and 1912 mainly in athletics (track and field), fencing, and tennis. They did not win any gold medals, but František Janda-Suk was their most successful athlete, winning silver in the 1900 discus throw. Two of their athletes were able to win two medals, all bronze: Hedwiga Rosenbaumová in tennis in 1900, and Vilém Goppold z Lobsdorfu, Sr. in fencing in 1908. In total Bohemian athletes won four Olympic medals.