1952 Summer Olympics

Games of the XV Olympiad

Finnish postage stamp featuring the Helsinki Olympic Stadium
Host city	Helsinki, Finland
Nations	69
Athletes	4,955 (4,436 men, 519 women)
Events	149 in 17 sports (23 disciplines)
Opening	July 19
Closing	August 3
Opened by	President Juho Kusti Paasikivi
Cauldron	Hannes Kolehmainen Paavo Nurmi
Stadium	Helsingin Olympiastadion
Summer
← London 1948 Melbourne 1956 →
Winter
← Oslo 1952 Cortina 1956 →

The 1952 Summer Olympics (Finnish: Kesäolympialaiset 1952; Swedish: Olympiska sommarspelen 1952), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland from July 19 to August 3, 1952.

Helsinki had been earlier selected to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II. It is the northernmost city at which a summer Olympic Games have been held. These were the first games to be held in a non-Indo-European language speaking country. It was also the Olympic Games at which the most number of world records were broken until surpassed by the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.^[1] The Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Thailand, and Saarland made their Olympic debuts in Helsinki 1952.

Contents

• 
  1 Host city selection
  


• 
  2 Highlights
  
  
  
  • 
    2.1 Participation of the Soviet Union
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  3 Sports
  
  
  
  • 
    3.1 Demonstration sports
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  4 Venues
  


• 
  5 Participating NOCs
  


• 
  6 Medal count
  


• 
  7 50th anniversary coin
  


• 
  8 See also
  


• 
  9 References
  


• 
  10 External links
  

Host city selection

Helsinki was chosen as the host city over bids from Amsterdam and five American cities at the 40th IOC Session on June 21, 1947, in Stockholm, Sweden. Minneapolis and Los Angeles finished tied for second in the final voting.

The voting results in chart below:^[2]

1952 Summer Olympics bidding results[3]
City	Country	Round 1	Round 2
Helsinki	Finland	14	15
Minneapolis	United States	4	5
Los Angeles	United States	4	5
Amsterdam	Netherlands	3	3
Detroit	United States	2	—
Chicago	United States	1	—
Philadelphia	United States	0	—

Highlights

Paavo Nurmi and the Olympic Flame

• These were the final Olympic Games organised under the IOC presidency of Sigfrid Edström.


• 
  Israel made its Olympic debut. The Jewish state had been unable to participate in the 1948 Games because of its War of Independence. A previous Palestine Mandate team had boycotted the 1936 Games in protest of the Nazi regime.


• 
  Indonesia made its Olympic debut with three athletes.


• The newly established People's Republic of China (PRC) participated in the Olympics for the first time, although only one swimmer (Wu Chuanyu) of its 40-member delegation arrived in time to take part in the official competition.^[4] The PRC would not return to the Summer Olympics until Los Angeles 1984.


• The Republic of China (Taiwan) withdrew from the Games on July 20, in protest of the IOC decision to allow athletes from the People's Republic of China to compete.^[5]
  


• The Olympic Flame was lit by two Finnish heroes, runners Paavo Nurmi and Hannes Kolehmainen. Nurmi first lit the cauldron inside the stadium, and later the flame was relayed to the stadium tower where Kolehmainen lit it. Only the flame in the tower was burning throughout the Olympics.


• 
  Hungary's Golden Team won the football tournament, beating Yugoslavia 2–0 in the final.


• Germany and Japan were invited after being barred in 1948. Following the post-war occupation and partition, three German states had been established. Teams from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Saarland (which joined the FRG after 1955) participated; the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was absent. Though they won 24 medals, the fifth-highest total at the Games, German competitors failed to win a gold medal for the 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 5000 m, 10,000 m and the Marathon (which he had never run before).


• The India national field hockey team won its fifth consecutive gold under captaincy of Kunwar Digvijay Singh
  


• 
  Bob Mathias of the United States became the first Olympian to successfully defend his decathlon title with a total score of 7,887 points.


• 
  Josy Barthel of Luxembourg pulled a major surprise by winning the 1500 m.


• 
  Eva Perón, the celebrated First Lady of Argentina, died of cancer in July 1952 while the Olympics were taking place, so a memorial was held at the Games for the Argentine team.^[6]
  

Participation of the Soviet Union

For the first time, a team from the Soviet Union participated in the Olympics. The first gold medal for the USSR was won by Nina Romashkova in the women's discus throwing event.

As the 1952 Olympics took place during the early years of the Cold War, during the height of the Korean War and the Red Scare, less than two years before the McCarthy hearings in the United States, American fear of the mystery team from a nation that had shunned international athletic contact since 1917 was at a height.

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“There will be seventy-one nations in the Olympics at Helsinki. The United States would like to beat all of them but the only one that counts is Soviet Russia. The communist propaganda machine must be silenced so that there can’t be even one distorted bleat out of it in regard to the Olympics. In sports the Red brothers have reached the put-up-or-shut-up stage. Let’s shut them up.

— Arthur Daley, sportswriter, The New York Times

Much of what was written before the Games speculated on the Soviets’ athletic prowess and scoffed at their professionalism, yet no one really knew what to expect from them on the playing field. The general consensus was that Soviet sports stars were well-compensated by their government, which should have rendered them ineligible for the Olympics. Meanwhile, American athletes who wished to compete in the Olympics were forbidden from accepting payment for coaching or even college scholarships.

“I guess old Joe Stalin thinks he is going to show up our soft capitalistic Americans. We’ve got to cut him down to size.”

— Bob Hope

The Soviets also turned the athletic competition into a metaphor for political propaganda.

“Every record won by our sportsmen, every victory in international contests, graphically demonstrates to the whole world the advantages and strength of the Soviet system.”

— Sovetsky Sport

The Soviets played up this mysterious angle in Helsinki as they demanded separate lodgings for their team and the other participating Iron Curtain nations. Team officials insisted on isolating their athletes in cramped, overcrowded dorms to prevent too much interaction with noncommunist athletes or attempted defections.

Although the U.S. won a narrow victory in the final medal count, the Soviets made controversial counter-claims of victory due to the different points systems used by the two teams.

New York Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury devoted a story on the final day of the Games to how the Soviets had shown poor sportsmanship by dissenting openly with Olympic officials and referees on a number of occasions.

“Today’s Olympic reports complained against the stalling tactics employed by the American basketball team... Even sharper criticism was meted out to the boxing judges. The Soviet press was plainly disappointed that their track team, which had been expected by the Russians to win several events, failed to take any championships.”

While some of the Soviets’ gripes may have been valid, the American press was quick to depict them as sore losers, disappointed at their own lack of domination.

Soviet Union's loss to political rival Yugoslavia hit Soviet football hard, and after just three games played in the season, CDKA Moscow, who had made up most of the USSR squad, was forced to withdraw from the league and later disbanded. Furthermore, Boris Arkadiev, who coached both USSR and CDKA, was stripped of his Merited Master of Sports of the USSR title.^[7]

“There were many more pressures on American athletes because of the Russians than in 1948. They were in a sense the real enemy. You just loved to beat ’em. You just had to beat ’em. It wasn’t like beating some friendly country like Australia.”

— Bob Mathias, decathlon champion in 1948 and 1952^[8]

Sports

The 1952 Summer Olympics featured 17 different sports encompassing 23 disciplines, and medals were awarded in 149 events. In the list below, the number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.

• Aquatics
  
  
  
  • 
    Diving (4)
    
  
  
  • 
    Swimming (11)
    
  
  
  • 
    Water polo (1)
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  Athletics (33)
  


• 
  Basketball (1)
  


• 
  Boxing (10)
  


• 
  Canoeing (9)
  


• 
  Cycling
  
  
  
  • Road (2)
    
  
  
  • Track (4)
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  Equestrian
  
  
  
  • Dressage (2)
    
  
  
  • Eventing (2)
    
  
  
  • Show jumping (2)
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  Fencing (7)
  


• 
  Field hockey (1)
  


• 
  Football (1)
  


• 
  Gymnastics (15)
  


• 
  Modern pentathlon (2)
  


• 
  Rowing (7)
  


• 
  Sailing (5)
  


• 
  Shooting (7)
  


• 
  Weightlifting (7)
  


• 
  Wrestling
  
  
  
  • Freestyle (8)
    
  
  
  • Greco-Roman (8)
    
  
  
  
  

Demonstration sports

• Handball


• Pesäpallo

Venues

Main article: Venues of the 1952 Summer Olympics

With an annual average temperature of 5.9 °C, Helsinki is one of the coldest cities to have hosted the Summer Olympics.^[9]

• 
  Hämeenlinna – Modern pentathlon


• 
  Harmaja – Sailing


• 
  Helsinki Football Grounds – Football


• 
  Huopalahti – Shooting (shotgun)


• 
  Käpylä – Cycling (road)


• 
  Kotka – Football


• 
  Laakso – Equestrian (eventing – riding)


• 
  Lahti – Football


• 
  Liuskasaari – Sailing


• 
  Malmi Rifle Range – Shooting (pistol/ rifle)


• 
  Maunula – Cycling (road)


• 
  Meilahti – Rowing


• 
  Messuhalli – Basketball (final), boxing, gymnastics, weightlifting, wrestling


• 
  Olympic Stadium – Athletics, Equestrian (jumping), Football (final)


• 
  Pakila – Cycling (road)


• 
  Ruskeasuo Equestrian Hall – Equestrian (dressage, eventing)


• 
  Swimming Stadium – Diving, Swimming, Water polo


• 
  Taivallahti – Canoeing


• 
  Tali Race Track – Equestrian (eventing steeplechase)


• 
  Tampere – Football


• 
  Tennis Palace – Basketball


• 
  Turku – Football


• 
  Velodrome – Cycling (track), Field hockey


• 
  Westend Tennis Hall – Fencing

Participating NOCs

See also: 1952 Summer Olympics national flag bearers

Participating nations. Pictured in blue are nations participating for the first time. Yellow dot: Helsinki

Number of athletes per country

A total of 69 nations participated in these Games, up from 59 in the 1948 Games. Thirteen nations made their first Olympic appearance in 1952: The Bahamas, the People's Republic of China, Gold Coast (now Ghana), Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, Soviet Union (USSR), Thailand, and Vietnam.

Japan and Germany were both reinstated and permitted to send athletes after being banned for 1948 for their instigation of World War II. Due to the division of Germany, German athletes from Saar entered a separate team for the only time. Only West Germany would provide athletes for the actual Germany team, since East Germany refused to participate in a joint German team.

Participating National Olympic Committees

Argentina (123)  Australia (87)  Austria (112)  Bahamas (7)  Belgium (135)  Bermuda (6)  Brazil (97)  Bulgaria (63)  Burma (5)  Canada (107)  Ceylon (5)  Chile (59)  China (1)  Cuba (29)  Czechoslovakia (99)  Denmark (129)  Egypt (106)  Finland (258) (host)  France (245)  Germany (205)  Ghana (7)  Great Britain (257)  Greece (53)  Guatemala (21)  Guyana (1)  Hong Kong (4)  Hungary (189)  Iceland (9)  India (69)  Indonesia (3)  Iran (22)  Ireland (19)  Israel (26)  Italy (231)  Jamaica (8)  Japan (69)  Lebanon (9)  Liechtenstein (2)  Luxembourg (44)  Mexico (64)  Monaco (8)  Netherlands (104)  Netherlands Antilles (11)  New Zealand (15)  Nigeria (9)  Norway (102)  Pakistan (38)  Panama (1)  Philippines (25)  Poland (125)  Portugal (71)  Puerto Rico (21)  Romania (114)  Saar (36)  Singapore (5)  South Africa (64)  South Korea (19)  Soviet Union (295)  Spain (30)  Sweden (206)  Switzerland (157)  Thailand (8)  Trinidad and Tobago (2)  Turkey (51)  United States (286)  Uruguay (32)  Venezuela (38)  Vietnam (8)  Yugoslavia (96)

Medal count

Main article: 1952 Summer Olympics medal table

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1952 Games.^[10]

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States	40	19	17	76
2	Soviet Union	22	30	19	71
3	Hungary	16	10	16	42
4	Sweden	12	13	10	35
5	Italy	8	9	4	21
6	Czechoslovakia	7	3	3	13
7	France	6	6	6	18
8	Finland*	6	3	13	22
9	Australia	6	2	3	11
10	Norway	3	2	0	5
Totals (10 nations)		126	97	91	314

50th anniversary coin

The 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Olympic Games was the main motif for one of the first Finnish euro silver commemorative coins, the €10 silver coin minted in 2002. The reverse depicts part of the Helsinki Olympic Stadium, as well as a section of the 1952 500 markka coin. The obverse has lettering SUOMI FINLAND 10 EURO, a flame, and Finland is the only country highlighted on earth.

See also

• 
  Olympics portal
  

• 1952 Winter Olympics

• Summer Olympic Games


• Olympic Games


• International Olympic Committee


• List of IOC country codes


• Finlandization

References

1. 
   ^ Bascomb, Neal (2005). The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It. Mariner Books. ISBN 9780618562091..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
   


2. 
   ^ "International Olympic Committee Vote History". 9 September 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
   


3. 
   ^ "Past Olympic Host City Election Results". Games Bids. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
   


4. 
   ^ Mulvenney, Nick (7 August 2008). "Chen Chengda, China's almost Olympian". Reuters. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
   


5. 
   ^ "On This Day: 1952: 20 July: Zatopek wins gold at Helsinki". BBC News. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
   


6. 
   ^ 1952 Summer Olympics official report. p. 91. – accessed 1 August 2010.^{[dead link]}
   


7. 
   ^ "USSR – Yugoslavia, the Story of Two Different Football Conceptions". russianfootballnews.com. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
   


8. 
   ^ Erin Redihan (February 8, 2018). "The 1952 Olympic Games, the US, and the USSR". www.processhistory.org. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
   


9. 
   ^ Marc Sollinger (February 6, 2014). "The 9 weirdest cities that have hosted the Olympics (and why!)". www.marketplace.org.
   


10. 
    ^ Byron, Lee; Cox, Amanda; Ericson, Matthew (4 August 2008). "A Map of Olympic Medals". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
    

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1952 Summer Olympics.

• 
  "Helsinki 1952". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
  


• 
  "Results and Medalists — 1952 Summer Olympics". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
  


• Helsinki 1952 Official Olympic Report la84foundation.org
  


• Helsinki 1952 Official Olympic Report olympic-museum.de
  

Preceded by London

Summer Olympic Games Helsinki XV Olympiad (1952)

Succeeded by Melbourne/Stockholm

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Ancient Olympic Games Intercalated Games 1906 Paralympic Games Youth Olympic Games

v t e Nations at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland
Africa	Egypt Gold Coast Nigeria South Africa
America	Argentina Bahamas Bermuda Brazil British Guiana Canada Chile Cuba Guatemala Jamaica Mexico Netherlands Antilles Panama Puerto Rico Trinidad United States Uruguay Venezuela
Asia	Burma Ceylon China Hong Kong India Indonesia Iran Israel Japan South Korea Lebanon Pakistan Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam
Europe	Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czechoslovakia Denmark Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Liechtenstein Luxembourg Monaco Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Saar Soviet Union Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Yugoslavia
Oceania	Australia New Zealand

v t e Events at the 1952 Summer Olympics (Helsinki)
Athletics Basketball Boxing Canoeing Cycling Diving Equestrian Fencing Field hockey Football Gymnastics Handball (demonstration) Modern pentathlon Pesäpallo (demonstration) Rowing Sailing Shooting Swimming Water polo Weightlifting Wrestling

v t e Venues of the 1952 Summer Olympics (Helsinki)
Hämeenlinna Harmaja Helsinki Football Grounds Huopalahti Käpylä Kotka Laakso Lahti Liuskasaari Malmi Rifle Range Maunula Meilahti Messuhalli Olympic Stadium Pakila Ruskeasuo Equestrian Hall Swimming Stadium Taivallahti Tali Race Track Tampere Tennis Palace Turku Velodrome Westend Tennis Hall

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