The tug of war contest at the 1912 Summer Olympics consisted of a single match, as only two teams entered the competition.

[1] Sweden was represented by the Stockholm Police, while Great Britain's team consisted of five men from City of London Police and five from "K" (Stepney) Division of the Metropolitan Police, the gold and bronze medallists respectively at the last Summer Olympics.

[2] Austria, Bohemia, and Luxembourg had all entered teams, but failed to appear.

The withdrawals of those three teams turned what had been planned as a 10-match round-robin tournament into a single-match bout between Sweden and Great Britain.

In this one, neither team gained the victory through pulling the other across the line, but after a prolonged stalemate a couple of the London men succumbed to exhaustion and sat on the ground, disqualifying them and giving the Swedes the victory.