At the 1924 Paris Olympics, Tarzan Faced Off With the Ambassador of Aloha

At every Olympics, spectators care a lot about the sprints. “In all sports,” the French Olympic Committee wrote in 1924, “pure speed is king.” That was why those Paris Games closed with the 100-meter freestyle sprint in Les Tourelles pool northeast of the city center. The match-up had everything. Two Americans headlined the field: An exciting young challenger, who arrived in the U.S. with his parents when he was…