Individual All-Around, Men

In the absence of the German gymnasts, this event was dominated by French and Italian gymnasts, as they took the first 11 places. No Swedes or Norwegians competed, even though those nations won two of the three team gymnastics events in 1912. The reason is that the Swedes and Norwegians were opposed to the concept of individual gymnastics competition. They believed that gymnastics was a team sport, which should be practiced in mass displays.

The individual event was won by Italy’s Alberto Braglia, who defended the individual all-around gold medal he had won at London in 1908. In addition to his gold medal, he retained possession of the Challenge Trophy for the individual all-around. This trophy had been donated for the 1908 Olympics by the City of Prague. Braglia had also been runner-up in both individual events at the 1906 Olympics in Athens. After his 1908 Olympic championships, Braglia used his Olympic fame to become a circus performer. Working on a trapeze, he sustained a serious injury from a fall in 1910. But he recovered from that setback to return to the Olympics in 1912 at Stockholm. After the 1912 Olympics, Braglia turned professional, returning to the circus as an acrobat, but he later returned to gymnastics and coached the Italian team at the 1932 Olympics.