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Gymnastics at the 1948 Summer Olympics

Coordinates: 51°33′20″N 0°16′47″W / 51.5556°N 0.2797°W / 51.5556; -0.2797
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Gymnastics
at the Games of the XIV Olympiad
VenueEmpress Hall
← 1936
1952 →

At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, nine events in gymnastics were contested.[1] Finland led all nations with six gold medals and ten medals overall.[2][3]

Shortly after the Czechoslovak team arrived in London, 22 year old team member Eliška Misáková was taken ill and confined to an iron lung. She died of infantile paralysis on the same day that her teammates competed.[4] When the Czechoslovak flag was raised at the medal ceremony, it was bordered with a black ribbon.[4]

Medal table

[edit]
RankNationGoldSilverBronzeTotal
1 Finland (FIN)62210
2 Switzerland (SUI)3429
3 Hungary (HUN)1236
4 Czechoslovakia (TCH)1034
5 United States (USA)0011
Totals (5 entries)1181130

Men's events

[edit]
Games Gold Silver Bronze
individual all-round
details
Veikko Huhtanen
 Finland
Walter Lehmann
 Switzerland
Paavo Aaltonen
 Finland
team all-around
details
 Finland (FIN)
Paavo Aaltonen
Veikko Huhtanen
Kalevi Laitinen
Olavi Rove
Aleksanteri Saarvala
Sulo Salmi
Heikki Savolainen
Einari Teräsvirta
 Switzerland (SUI)
Karl Frei
Christian Kipfer
Walter Lehmann
Robert Lucy
Michael Reusch
Josef Stalder
Emil Studer
Melchior Thalmann
 Hungary (HUN)
László Baranyai
Jozsef Fekete
Gyözö Mogyorosi
János Mogyorósi-Klencs
Ferenc Pataki
Lajos Sántha
Lajos Tóth
Ferenc Várkõi
floor exercises
details
Ferenc Pataki
 Hungary
János Mogyorósi-Klencs
 Hungary
Zdeněk Růžička
 Czechoslovakia
horizontal bar
details
Josef Stalder
 Switzerland
Walter Lehmann
 Switzerland
Veikko Huhtanen
 Finland
parallel bars
details
Michael Reusch
 Switzerland
Veikko Huhtanen
 Finland
Josef Stalder
 Switzerland
Christian Kipfer
 Switzerland
pommel horse
details
Paavo Aaltonen
 Finland
none awarded [A] none awarded [A]
Veikko Huhtanen
 Finland
Heikki Savolainen
 Finland
rings
details
Karl Frei
 Switzerland
Michael Reusch
 Switzerland
Zdeněk Růžička
 Czechoslovakia
vault
details
Paavo Aaltonen
 Finland
Olavi Rove
 Finland
János Mogyorósi-Klencs
 Hungary
Ferenc Pataki
 Hungary
Leo Sotorník
 Czechoslovakia

Women's events

[edit]
Games Gold Silver Bronze
team all-around
details
 Czechoslovakia (TCH)
Zdeňka Honsová
Marie Kovářová
Miloslava Misáková
Milena Müllerová
Věra Růžičková
Olga Šilhánová
Božena Srncová
Zdeňka Veřmiřovská
 Hungary (HUN)
Edit Weckinger
Mária Zalai-Kövi
Irén Karcsics
Erzsébet Gulyás-Köteles
Erzsébet Balázs
Olga Tass
Anna Fehér
Margit Nagy-Sándor
 United States (USA)
Ladislava Bakanic
Marian Barone
Consetta Lenz
Dorothy Dalton
Meta Elste
Helen Schifano
Clara Schroth
Anita Simonis
Individual all-around†
details
Zdeňka Honsová
 Czechoslovakia
Edit Weckinger
 Hungary
Laura Micheli
 Italy
n/a
Vault†
details
Karin Lindberg
 Sweden
Joan Airey
 Great Britain
Clara Schroth
 United States
n/a
Balance Beam†
details
Zdeňka Honsová
 Czechoslovakia
Irén Karcsics
 Hungary
Miloslava Misáková
 Czechoslovakia
n/a
Flying Rings†, †††
details
Zdeňka Honsová
 Czechoslovakia
Edit Weckinger
 Hungary
Laura Micheli
 Italy
n/a
Floor Exercise†, ††††
n/a n/a n/a
Uneven Bars†, ††
n/a n/a n/a

† Within the sport of artistic gymnastics, although men were recognized with individual medals at the time, the women weren’t. The list of the individual medalists within this table reflects the individuals who garnered a top-three placement in the team competition on the respective apparatus (or all 3 combined, in the case of the all-around) and who would have been awarded a medal with the rules that commenced with the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympic Games and that would change periodically at future Olympic Games with respect to the debut of individual finals competitions at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics and with respect to the New Life rules that made their Olympic debut at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics.

†† Women did not compete on the Uneven Bars apparatus during these Olympic Games.

††† This was the only time that women gymnasts competed on this apparatus at an Olympic Games.

†††† Women’s Floor Exercise was not an event that existed at the time.

Notes

[edit]
^[A] Other sources[5][6] claim that Luigi Zanetti (Italy) also won a silver medal and Guido Figone (Italy) also won a bronze medal in the pommel horse event, despite the three gold medals awarded for the three-way first place tie.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ (ed.) Lord Burghley (1951). The Official Report of the Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad (PDF). London: Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad. pp. 389–405. Retrieved 2008-02-04. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ "Olympic Medal Winners". International Olympic Committee. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  3. ^ "Gymnastics at the 1948 London Summer Games". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  4. ^ a b Wallechinsky, David (1984). The Complete Book of the Olympics. England: Penguin Books. p. 323. ISBN 0140066322.
  5. ^ Lord Killanin; Rodda, John (1983). The Olympic Games 1984. Willow. ISBN 0-00-218062-6.
  6. ^ Greenberg, Stan (1996). The Guinness Book of Olympic Facts and Feats. Guinness Publishing. ISBN 0-85112-639-1.

51°33′20″N 0°16′47″W / 51.5556°N 0.2797°W / 51.5556; -0.2797