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Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics

sporting event delegation

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ2324231
Source-derived summary

Belgium was the host nation for the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. 336 competitors, 326 men and 10 women, took part in 121 events in 23 sports.

Medalists

Gold

Edmond Cloetens — Archery, Men's Individual fixed large bird

Edmond Cloetens, Louis van de Perck, Firmin Flamand, Edmond van Moer, Joseph Hermans and Auguste van de Verre — Archery, Men's Team fixed large bird

Edmond Cloetens, Louis van de Perck, Firmin Flamand, Edmond van Moer, Joseph Hermans and Auguste van de Verre — Archery, Men's Team fixed small bird

Edmond van Moer — Archery, Men's Individual fixed small bird

Hubert Van Innis, Alphonse Allaert, Edmond de Knibber, Louis Delcon, Jérome de Mayer, Pierre van Thielt, Louis Fierens and Louis van Beeck — Archery, Men's Team moving bird 33m

Hubert Van Innis, Alphonse Allaert, Edmond de Knibber, Louis Delcon, Jérome de Mayer, Pierre van Thielt, Louis Fierens and Louis van Beeck — Archery, Men's Team moving bird 50m

Hubert Van Innis — Archery, Men's Individual moving bird 28m

Hubert Van Innis — Archery, Men's Individual moving bird 33m

Henry George — Cycling, Men's 50 km

Daniel Bouckaert — Equestrian, Individual vaulting

Daniel Bouckaert, Louis Finet and Maurice Van Ranst, van Schauwbroeck and van Cauwenberg — Equestrian, Team vaulting

Men's Team — Football

Emile Cornellie, Florimond Cornellie and Frédéric Bruynseels — Sailing, Men's 6 metre class

Frans de Haes — Weightlifting, Featherweight

Silver

Louis van de Perck — Archery, Men's Individual fixed large bird

Louis van de Perck — Archery, Men's Individual fixed small bird

Hubert Van Innis, Alphonse Allaert, Edmond de Knibber, Louis Delcon, Jérome de Mayer, Pierre van Thielt, Louis Fierens and Louis van Beeck — Archery, Men's Team moving bird 28m

Hubert Van Innis — Archery, Men's Individual moving bird 50m

Men's Team — Equestrian

Men's Team — Fencing, Men's Team Epee

Men's Team — Gymnastics

Léon Huybrechts, Charles van den Bussche and John Klotz — Sailing, 6 metre class (1919 rating)

Albert Bosquet, Joseph Cogels, Emile Dupont, Henri Quersin, Louis van Tilt and Edouard Fesinger — Shooting, Men's Team clay pigeons

Albert Durant, Gérard Blitz, Maurice Blitz, Joseph Pletincx, Paul Gailly, Pierre Nijs, René Bauwens and Pierre Dewin — Water polo, Men's Team competition

Louis Williquet — Weightlifting, Lightweight

Bronze

Firmin Flamand — Archery, Men's Individual fixed large bird

Joseph Hermans — Archery, Men's Individual fixed small bird

Albert de Buinne, André Vercruysse, Bernard Janssens and Albert Wyckmans — Cycling, Men's Team Time Trial

Roger Moeremans d'Emaüs, Oswald Lints, Jules Bonvalet and Jacques Misonne — Equestrian, Men's Team three-day event

Louis Finet — Equestrian, Individual vaulting

Men's Team (Swedish system) — Gymnastics

Men's Team — Hockey

Albert Grisar, Willy de l'Arbre, Léopold Standaert, Henri Weewauters and Georges Hellebuyck — Sailing, 8 metre class (1919 rating)

Gerard Blitz — Swimming, Men's 100m backstroke

Men's Team — Tug of war

Georges Rooms — Weightlifting, Lightweight

Fernande Arendt — Tennis, Women's doubles

Archery

Belgium sent 14 archers in its second Olympic archery appearance. The six competitors who competed in the fixed bird events had no international competitions, and took the guaranteed 4 gold medals, 2 silvers, and 2 bronzes. Van Innis, a veteran of Belgium's first appearance in 1900, faced a lone French archer in each of the three individual moving bird competitions; he took two of the three gold medals and one silver. In the team moving bird competitions, the Belgian team faced off against France in the 50 and 33 metre events, beating the French team both times. The Netherlands sent a team for the 28 metre competition, which knocked Belgium down to second place in that event.

Overall, the team took 8 of 10 possible gold medals as well as 4 silvers and 2 bronzes. They had been guaranteed 4 golds, 7 silvers, and 3 bronzes at worst.

Aquatics

Diving

Three divers represented Belgium in 1920.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics” as sporting event delegation. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1920, 1919, 1900—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Belgium, Summer and Olympics can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as sporting event delegation. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2324231. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1920, 1919 and 1900.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics primary sources, Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics archive and Belgium research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.