The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. Helsinki had been elected as the host city over rival bids from Amsterdam and five American cities: Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Philadelphia at the 40th IOC Session on June 21, 1947, in Stockholm, Sweden. Helsinki had been earlier given the 1940 Summer Olympics but they were cancelled due to World War II. The voting results, in a chart below, comes from the International Olympic Committee Vote History web page.
Highlights
Paavo Nurmi and the Olympic Flame
- To the enjoyment of the Finnish crowd, the Olympic Flame was lit by two Finnish heroes, runners Paavo Nurmi and Hannes Kolehmainen.
- For the first time, a team from the USSR participated in the Olympics. The first gold medal for the USSR was won by Nina Romashkova in the women's Discus Throwing event, and the Soviet women's gymnastics team won the first of its eight consecutive gold medals.
- Israel made its Olympic debut. The Jewish state could not participate in the 1948 Games because of the War of Independence. Previous Mandate-era teams did not participate in the Olympics because of the Second World War and a boycott of the 1936 Games in protest of the Nazi regime.
- Hungary, a country with a mere 10 million inhabitants, won an astonishing 42 medals at these games, coming in third place behind the USA and the USSR with one of the most outstanding exhibitions ever.
- Hungary's Golden Team won the football tournament in style, beating Yugoslavia 2-0 in the final.
- Germany and Japan were invited again after being barred in 1948. After occupation and partition, three German states had been erected. Only West German athletes took part, from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Saarland which joined the FRG after 1955, the East German Democratic Republic being absent. Despite ranking 5th by total medals with 24, Germans failed to score Gold for the first and only time.
- Rules in equestrianism now allowed non-military officers to compete, including women. Lis Hartel of Denmark became the first woman in the sport to win a medal.
- Emil Zátopek of Czechoslovakia won three gold medals in the 5,000m, 10,000m and the Marathon (which he never run before).
- Bob Mathias of the USA became the first Olympian to successfully defend his decathlon title with a total score of 7,887 points.
- Josy Barthel of the tiny country of Luxembourg pulled a major surprise by winning the 1500 m.
Sports
A
Romanian poster promoting the 1952 Olympics
Demonstration sports
Participating nations
Participating nations. Pictured in blue are nations participating for the first time.
A total of 69 nations participated in these Games, up from 59 in the 1948 Games. Twelve nations made their first Olympic appearance in 1952: The Bahamas, Gold Coast (now Ghana), Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, Soviet Union (USSR), Thailand, and Vietnam. Due to the division of Germany, German athletes from Saar entered a separate team for the first and only time.
Medal count
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These are the top ten nations that won medals at these Games.
See also
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Finland
United States
Netherlands
Soviet Union
Hungary
Sweden
Italy
Czechoslovakia
France
Australia
Norway
