1932 Summer Olympics

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1932 Summer Olympics

Top
Games of the X Olympiad
Los Angeles1932 logo.png
Host city Los Angeles, California, United States
Nations participating 37
Athletes participating 1,332 (1,206 men, 126 women)
Events 116 in 14 sports
Opening ceremony July 30
Closing ceremony August 14
Officially opened by Vice President Charles Curtis
Athlete's Oath George Calnan
Stadium Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

The 1932 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the X Olympiad, was a major world wide multi-athletic event which was celebrated in 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. No other cities made a bid to host these Olympics. Held during the worldwide Great Depression, many nations and athletes were unable to pay for the trip to Los Angeles. Fewer than half the participants of the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam returned to compete in 1932. US President Herbert Hoover did not attend the Games, becoming the second sitting head of government not to appear at an Olympics hosted in that country. This was Hoover's second time not attending an olympiad held in the US during his presidency, as the Olympic winter games were held in Lake Placid, New York, earlier the same year. The first US president who did not attend a games was President Theodore Roosevelt, at the 1904 III Olympiad held in St. Louis, MO. His absence was due to the fact that David R. Francis, Mayor of St. Louis, refused any help officiating the Games.[1]

The organizing committee put no record of the finances of the Games in their report, though contemporary newspapers reported that the Games had made a profit of US$1,000,000.[1]

Contents

Highlights

Nishi with Olympic steed, Uranus
  • An Olympic Village was built for the first time, in Baldwin Hills, occupied by the male athletes.[2] Female athletes were housed at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard.
  • The first use of a victory podium.[3]
  • The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was known in 1932 as Olympic Stadium.
  • Tenth Street, a major thoroughfare in Los Angeles, was renamed Olympic Boulevard in honor of the Games of the Tenth Olympiad.
  • Babe Didrikson won two gold medals in the javelin and the hurdles event, and competed in a jump-off for a silver in the high jump. Her technique in the jump-off was ruled illegal, leaving Didrikson with second place.
  • In field hockey, only three nations took part. The host nation lost both matches, 1-24 to India and 2-9 to Japan, but still won a bronze medal.
  • Poland's Stanisława Walasiewicz won the gold medal in the women's 100 meters; she would also win the silver medal in the event four years later. After her death in 1980, it was discovered that she was intersex and would have been ineligible to participate.
  • Finnish star Paavo Nurmi was barred from competing in the Olympics for being a professional.
  • Eddie Tolan won both the 100 m and 200 m sprint events.
  • Romeo Neri won three gold medals in gymnastic.
  • Helene Madison won three gold medals in swimming, while the Japanese upset the men's events and took all but one title.
  • Takeichi Nishi (Baron Nishi) was the gold medalist with his horse Uranus in the equestrian show jumping individual event. Nishi's gold medal is Japan's only gold medal in the equestrian event to this day. Nishi would later die in 1945 as an officer stationed in the defense of the island of Iwo Jima, and as such is a main character in Clint Eastwood's film, Letters from Iwo Jima.

Medals awarded

See the medal winners, ordered by sport:

Demonstration sports

Art

See Art competitions at the 1932 Summer Olympics for details of the art competitions held at the games, in which medals were awarded in five categories (architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture), for works inspired by sport-related themes.

Venues

The following venues hosted events at the 1932 games[4][5]:

Participating nations

participants

A total of 37 nations were represented at the 1932 Games. Colombia and the Republic of China (with a single athlete) made their first appearance at the Olympic Games.

Medal count

These are the top ten nations that won medals at these Games.

 Rank  Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 United States (host nation) 41 32 30 103
2 Italy 12 12 12 36
3 France 10 5 4 19
4 Sweden 9 5 9 23
5 Japan 7 7 4 18
6 Hungary 6 4 5 15
7 Finland 5 8 12 25
8 Great Britain 4 7 5 16
9 Germany 3 12 5 20
10 Australia 3 1 1 5

See also

  • Parley Parker Christensen, Los Angeles City Council member who blocked payment for sending 1932 Olympic flag to Berlin for the 1936 games.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Zarnowski, C. Frank (Summer 1992). "A Look at Olympic Costs". Citius, Altius, Fortius 1 (1): 16–32. http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/JOH/JOHv1n1/JOHv1n1f.pdf. Retrieved 2007-03-24. 
  2. ^ 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Athlete's Village in Baldwin Hills, Accessed November 12, 2007.
  3. ^ Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, National Landmarks Program, National Park Service, Accessed November 12, 2007.
  4. ^ http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/uo-athletics&CISOPTR=596&REC=4
  5. ^ http://www.la84foundation.org/6oic/OfficialReports/1932/1932s.pdf

References

External links

Preceded by
Amsterdam
Summer Olympic Games
Los Angeles

X Olympiad (1932)
Succeeded by
Berlin



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