1932 Summer Olympics
The 1932 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the X Olympiad, were an international multi-sport 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. U.S. President Herbert Hoover did not attend the Games, becoming the first sitting head of government not to appear at an Olympics hosted in that country.[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]
Highlights
- An Olympic Village was built for the first time, in the 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.
- Babe Didrikson won two gold medals in the javelin and the hurdles event, and competed in a jump-off for a third 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.
- 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.
- Mahatma Gandhi took part in the games as a press reporter.
- Ashlee Johnson single handedly won the gold in the tug o-war against the unbeatable folk ladies.
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (August 2008) |
- Only 24 members of Brazil's Olympic team of 69 competed. Brazil had been struck so hard by the Great Depression that the only way it could afford to transport its team to Los Angeles was to put it on a barge containing 25 tons of coffee to sell to ports on the way. The barge managed to sell just $24 worth of coffee, as the United States had a $1 head tax per person entering the country. The last hope of getting the whole team ashore rested on the Brazilian consulate in San Francisco, which sent out a courier with a check written out for the equivalent of US$45, but the Brazilian reis devalued so much that the check was only worth $17 by the time the courier arrived in Los Angeles, causing the check to bounce.
- The Grand Olympic Auditorium (which hosted boxing, weightlifting, and wrestling) was the largest indoor arena in the United States at the time, seating 15,300. The arena, built in the mid-1920s, was not used for the 1984 Summer Olympics; instead the Sports Arena was used for boxing and other venues were used for weightlifting and wrestling.
Medals awarded
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
Demonstration sports
Participating nations
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.
| 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 |
References
- ^ a b Zarnowski, C. Frank (1992). "A Look at Olympic Costs" (PDF). Citius, Altius, Fortius. 1 (1): 16–32. Retrieved 2007-03-24.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Athlete's Village in the Baldwin Hills, Accessed November 12, 2007.
- ^ Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, National Landmarks Program, National Park Service, Accessed November 12, 2007.
External links
