Stockholm saw the number of events reduced to 14 and a new event introduced - the pentathlon.

Consisting of horse riding, fencing, swimming, shooting and cross-country running - it was dominated by the Games' star, America's Jim Thorpe.

An American of Indian and Irish ancestry, he won the pentathlon and decathlon with ease, was fourth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump.

The King of Sweden, Gustav V, hailed Thorpe as the world's best athlete.

But Thorpe's glory was overshadowed when it emerged that he had received payment for playing baseball in his youth.

His medals were taken back by the IOC as a breach of the amateur rules of the Olympics, leaving Thorpe as the first athlete ever to be disqualified from the Olympics for being a professional.

In 1982, some 29 years after his death, the IOC officially pardoned Thorpe, a fitting tribute to the man voted the greatest athlete of first half of the century.

Finland's Hannes Kolehmainen was the other success story of the Games, taking three gold medals in the 5000, 10,000 and 12,000m cross country, beginning a Finnish dominance of the long distance events over the next 30 years.

Elsewhere, the Stockholm Games were noted for being the first to use electrical timing equipment.

Women also made their debut in the swimming events, with the British 4x100 relay team winning gold.