Finland competed at the Summer Olympic Games for the first time at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. The Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire at the time, but Finland had become a sovereign member of the International Olympic Committee in 1907. Medals Verner Weckman became the first Finn to win an Olympic gold. He had also been the first Finn to win a gold at the 1906 Intercalated Games. Team Aarne Salovaara and Johan Kemp competed in two sports, among 46 athletes in the games who competed in multiple sports. No women competed from Finland. However, Valborg Florström performed in a diving exhibition, which made her the first Finnish woman in the Olympics. Including non-competitors, the Finnish team had 73 athletes and 6 officials. Chef de Mission was Reinhold Felix von Willebrand. The Finnish Comité D'Honneur was Axel Fredrik Londen, Gösta Wasenius and Fred Hackman. Preparations At the time, Grand Duchy of Finland was not an independent country, but an autonomous part of the Russian Empire. However, Finns were qualified to take part independently as a sporting nation, which was a category recently devised by Pierre de Coubertin, in an International Olympic Committee meeting in May 1907. Formal Finnish preparations for the 1908 Games had already began by then. In December, the Finnish Olympic Committee was established, which budgeted 48,000 Finnish markkas (equal to about 200,000 euros in 2018) for a team of 80 to be sent. Half of it was applied from the Senate of Finland, who eventually granted only 8,000 markkas (30,000 €). By June 1908, a further 22,000 markkas (90,000 €) had been raised by various means. The Finnish Olympic team was mostly selected by trials arranged in the spring of 1908. A few had to be replaced, when gymnastics teachers were defined as professionals. Most of the Finnish team departed Helsinki aboard steamer Polaris on 7 July 1908. The shooting team had departed on 1 July, and wrestler Verner Weckman travelled independently from Berlin. Opening ceremony controversies Polaris arrived in Hull on 13 July, the day of the opening ceremony, late due to a machine breakdown. A train took them to London, where they went directly from the station to the stadium. The hosts penalized the Finnish tardiness by having them enter the stadium last in the Parade of Nations, instead of their alphabetical position. A further problem was