Apollon The Emperor of Athletes - LA84 Foundation

IRON GAME HISTORY VOLUME 4 NUMBERS 5 & 6
It was about nineteen
years ago, and Apollon
was performing in the
music halls of Paris and the
other major cities. His act
consisted of unique and
unforgettable feats of
strength. The strongman
was at that time twenty-five
years old. His incomparable
musculature and
physique in all its enormity
were completed by a superb
head that conveyed energy
and harmony; all went to
create a unique being.
Apollon was one of those
phenomenons of power that
a capricious Nature produces
perhaps once in ten
centuries.
I have seen all the
most renowned strongmen
of the stage: Sandow with
the superb physique; Batta,
the Gentleman Athlete, who
lifted a horse at arm’s
length; Cyclops, who bent
and twisted coins. I have
applauded Paris, the boat
man, and I have admired
John Grünn, the breaker of THIS CONTEMPORARY DRAWING SHOWS APOLLON PERFORMING HIS “ESCAPING
horseshoes. But none of PRISONER" ACT AT THE FOLIES-BERGERE IN PARIS IN 1889.
these acts were comparable
arm, and it grasps the massive
iron rods; this the arm of
Apollon. Although the other
arm is invisible, its hand
grasps the adjacent bar, and
using an irresistible pressure
the two hands and the two
bars slowly begin to move
apart. In the gradually widening
space a monstrous shoulder
soon appears and pushes
against one of the bowed rods.
Both hands now seize the
other bar. The monstrous
arm, now clearly visible slowly
extends, and through the
yawning gap which he has
just produced, the fugitive
Hercules passes his entire
body.
The powerful giant
now appears on the other side
of the bars and abruptly
shrugs off his cloak just at the
same moment that the spotlights
flood him with their
light, thus revealing his
incredible physique in his
silken tights. All of this action
is so astounding, so terrific
that several seconds pass
before the breathless audience
is able to explode with its
seemingly endless applause.
to that of Apollon. I do not know which artist of genius devised this Next, the strongman has his weights, barbells, and dumbthrilling
scenario, but I am certain that no one could forget it after elk brought out and completes his unforgettable entrance with sevonce
seeing it.
eral feats of strength. He juggles with a fifty-kilo weight and catch-
When the curtain rises, the stage is in partial darkness. es it with his outstretched arm; he performs a one-handed press
We can just make out on the stage enormous iron prison bars two with a short dumbell weighing close to eighty kilos and then lifts
meter high. All at once behind these bars we hear noises that break an enormous 118-kilo barbell which even the strongest athletes can
the suspenseful silence: several shouts and then footsteps of a flee- barely budge from the ground.
ing man. Then, gunshots ring out over the heads of the audience,
During the day Apollon’s prison bars were displayed outand
the flash of those explosions briefly illuminate the inky dark- side the theater or musk hall like a ladder, and skeptical passersness.
A shadowy figure draped in a cloak runs across the stage by could come and exhaust themselves in vain attempts to bend the
behind the bars. This is the prisoner who seeks to escape from immovable bars.
the fortress. This is Apollon.
It was in 1889, and Apollon had just arrived in Lille. He
The dark shape stops directly behind the iron gate, then was to have his first performance that very evening at the Théâtre
two enormous hands seize it in an attempt to rattle the thick, metal des Variétés in the rue Jean-Roisin [Desbonnet’s note: today demolbars.
Suddenly, a huge, bare arm appears and passes between two ished]. His imposing equipment which included his dumbells,
of the bars. Is it really an arm? Is it not the kg of a giant? No, his weights, and his enormous bars (still bent from his previous
an enormous hand extends from the forty-four-centimeter fore- evening’s performance) had been unloaded with great difficulty by
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