The 1952 Summer Olympics (Finnish: Kesäolympialaiset 1952, Swedish: Olympiska sommarspelen 1952), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad (Finnish: XV olympiadin kisat, Swedish: Spel i XV Olympiaden) and commonly known as Helsinki 1952, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1952 in Helsinki, Finland.
After Japan declared in 1938 that it would be unable to host the 1940 Olympics in Tokyo due to the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War, Helsinki had been selected to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were then cancelled due to World War II. Tokyo eventually hosted the games in 1964. Helsinki is the northernmost city at which a summer Olympic Games have been held. With London hosting the 1948 Olympics, 1952 is the most recent time when two consecutive summer Olympic Games were held entirely in Europe. The 1952 Summer Olympics was the last of the two consecutive Olympics to be held in Northern Europe, following the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.
They were also the Olympic Games at which the most world records were broken until they were surpassed by the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. The Bahamas, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, the People's Republic of China, Saarland, the Soviet Union, Thailand, and Vietnam made their Olympic debuts at the 1952 Games. The United States won the most gold and overall medals at these Olympics.
Background and preparation of the Games
Host city selection
Inspired by the success of the Swedish 1912 Olympics, Finnish sports fans began to arouse the idea of their own Olympic Games: for example, Erik von Frenckell publicly presented his dreams of the Finnish Olympic Games at the opening of the 1915 Töölön Pallokenttä.
As the Olympic success continued in the 1920s, enthusiasm for one's own Olympics grew, and after the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, Finnish sports leaders began planning to build a stadium in Helsinki in 1920. Finland's main sports organizations and the City of Helsinki founded the Stadion Foundation in 1927 to get the stadium to Helsinki. In the same year, Ernst Edvard Krogius, who represented Finland on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), announced Finland's willingness to host the competition.
In 1930, preparations for the 1936 Games, which was accelerated by the launch of a design project for the Olympic Stadium. However, Helsinki was not a candidate in the first round in 1931, and Berlin won the competition, but Helsinki immediately registered as a candidate for the 1940 Games. Those games were awarded to Tokyo in 1936, and two years later with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War Japan announced they were giving up the 1940 games, and four days later the IOC offered the Games to Helsinki, which agreed to take over, although there was little time left to prepare for the Games.
World War II broke out on 1 September 1939, with the German–Soviet invasion of Poland, which also drew Britain and France to war. Despite the aggression, the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games continued to be optimistic about the preparations for the Games. However, the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, halted planning for the games. After the Winter War, the Organizing Committee decided to abandon the Games on 20 March 1940 due to the hostilities across Europe, the suspension of preparations caused by the Winter War, and the deplorable economic situation. At the meeting of the Finnish Olympic Committee on 20 April 1940, the Olympic Games in Finland were officially canceled. In the meantime, World War II had already expanded, with Germany occupying Denmark and fighting in Norway. Instead of the Olympic Games, Finland held a Memorial Competitions for Fallen Athletes who died in the Winter War against Russia, at the opening of which actor Eino Kaipainen recited the poem Silent Winners written by Yrjö Jylhä. The memorial competitions were held on the initiative of the sports journalist Sulo Kolkka.
At the end of World War II, London was awarded the 1948 Summer Olympics after the city was originally granted the 1944 Games, which were canceled due to the war. Helsinki continued its attempt to have the Games organized and registered as candidates for the 1952 Games. At the IOC Congress in Stockholm on 21 June 1947, Helsinki was chosen as the host city, leaving behind the bids of Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia. Helsinki's strengths included the fairly completed venues built for the 1940 Games.
Bidding results
Organizing Committee
After confirmation that Helsinki would host the Games, the "XV Olympia Helsinki 1952" was established as the organizing committee of the Games on 8 September 1947. Its members were the Finnish Olympic Committee, the Finnish State, the City of Helsinki and 26 various sports organizations. The mayor of Helsinki Erik von Frenckell was elected chairman of the committee, who at the time also chaired Finnish Football Association. Akseli Kaskela, Olavi Suvanto and Armas-Eino Martola were elected Vice-Chairs. Among them, Kaskela and Suvanto were elected on political grounds as representatives of the bourgeois Finnish Sports Federation (SVUL) and the leftist Finnish Workers' Sports Federation (TUL), Martola, on the other hand, got a former officer to lead the organization of the practical arrangements.
Other members of the Organizing Committee were Yrjö Enne, Väinö A. M. Karikoski, Urho Kekkonen, Ernst Krogius, William Lehtinen, Aarne K. Leskinen, Eino Pekkala, Väinö Salovaara and Erik Åström. In 1948–1949, Karikoski, Kekkonen, Krogius and Lehtinen resigned from the committee, and Lauri Miettinen, Arno Tuurna and Yrjö Valkama were elected to replace them. In the spring of 1952, Ente was replaced by Arvi E. Heiskanen and as completely new members by Mauno Pekkala and Aaro Tynell.
Erik von Frenckell was the chairman of the organizing committee and the other members were Armas-Eino Martola (competition director), Yrjö Valkama (sports director), Olavi Suvanto (maintenance director), Akseli Kaskela, Aarne K. Leskinen and Niilo Koskinen. In addition, the head of the central office Kallio Kotkas and the head of information Eero Petäjäniemi were involved in the competition organization.
Political situation
The international political atmosphere was tense when the Helsinki Olympics were held. When the IOC held its meeting in Vienna in 1951, many difficult topics were on the agenda. The Cold War was under way, and the situation between Israel and Arab countries, divided Germany had to be addressed as a team, and the Chinese Civil War, with the Chinese Communist Party winning, forming the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China government exiled to Taiwan.
Four years earlier, Japan was not invited to the London Olympics from the losing states of the Second World War. The Olympic Committee of Israel had not yet been recognized, and a successor to the German Olympic Committee, which had been dissolved during World War II, had not yet been established, but all these countries already participated in the Helsinki Games, as did Saarland.
The Cold War affected the participation of both the United States and the Soviet Union in the Games. The participation of the United States in the Games was decided only after the country had received an assessment of the political situation in Finland from its embassy in Helsinki. The Soviet Union was accepted as a member of the IOC in May 1951, and in December of the same year the country accepted the invitation to the competition, as the country's athletes were in medal condition. Although the Soviet leadership had previously considered the Games a bourgeois event, the Helsinki Games held propaganda value. In the Soviet Union, billions of rubles were spent on coaching athletes in just one year. The Soviet Union planned to fly its athletes every day between Leningrad and Helsinki. Another option was for Soviet athletes to stay in the Soviet Porkkalanniemi garrison. However, Finland required that all competitors stay in the Olympic village. As a compromise solution for the Eastern Bloc athletes, a second Olympic village was established in Espoo, Otaniemi as Soviet leaders wanted them to avoid contact with Western athletes. Joseph Stalin allowed Soviet athletes to enter the 1952 Summer Olympics because he was sure that they would win the most medals. However, American athletes secured more gold and total medals and Stalin afforded more resources for the advancement of elite athletes in the Soviet Union in the build-up to the 1956 Summer Olympics.
The 1952 Games were also threatened with cancellation due to the deteriorating world situation. The Korean War had begun in 1950, which also caused concern in the organizing committee. At Von Frenckell's suggestion, the organizing committee decided to take out Lloyd's of London war insurance.
Construction work
Most of the venues for the competitions were completed prior to the 1940s in anticipation of successful bid attempts, but some expansion and refurbishment work was needed, including the construction of additional stands at the Olympic and Swimming Stadium. A residential area, Kisakylä (Olympic Village) was built south of Käpylä's Koskelantie to accommodate competitors. The area, which was built close to the 1940 Olympics, was already the residence of the people of Helsinki at that time. Just below the opening, the competition area was completed for the use of visitors Kumpula Outdoor Swimming Pool. Female athletes got their own race village from the Nursing College in Meilahti. The athletes of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc stayed in the Teekkarikylä in Otaniemi. The Finnish team lived on the premises of the Santahamina Army School (later the Cadet School, now the National Defence University).
The City of Helsinki prepared for the Olympics by building a new airport in Seutula (now Helsinki-Vantaan lentoasema), 11-story Hotelli Palace, and the Olympic Pier in South Harbor. A large electric scoreboard was procured. It attracted international attention because it represented the top of its time in the scoreboard field both in terms of its system and its technology. OMEGA debuted the OMEGA Time Recorder in Helsinki. This all-new quartz clock not only timed the events but also printed out the results. This breakthrough technology allowed official Olympic times to be accurate to 1/100 of a second. As a result, the company received the prestigious Croix du Mérite Olympique award for their efforts. In 1950 cable television was tried for the first time in Finland, in the 1952 Olympics people could watch TV sending from the stadium through coaxial cable to Stockmann department store window.
Helsinki paved tens of kilometers of roads, and a myriad of houses were painted. The city's first traffic lights were installed at the intersection of Aleksanterinkatu and Mikonkatu in October 1951. The Palace Hotel and Vaakuna Hotel among others, were completed for the needs of the guests. However, due to the relatively low number of hotels in the city, tent villages were built for tourists in Lauttasaari and Seurasaari, among others. However, the preparations for accommodation turned out to be considerably oversized; at its best, the occupancy rate of the 6,000-seat tent village in Lauttasaari had an occupancy of only 8 per cent. With the support of the Olympia 1952 committee, Finland's first mini golf courses were completed to entertain guests.
Anthem
The International Olympic Committee had declared in 1950 that it did not have an official Olympic anthem, but that the organizers could decide their own anthems. An anthem competition was held in Finland. In the spring of 1951, a poetry competition was announced, which was surprisingly won by an unknown teacher candidate, Niilo Partanen. Second and third came the well-known poets Toivo Lyy and Heikki Asunta. These winning poems were allowed to be used in the composition competition. The selection of the 51 compositions by a jury chaired by Jouko Tolonen was also a surprise. When the winner was announced on 17 March 1952, an unknown teacher Jaakko Linjama was revealed behind the nickname, who had used Lyy's lyrics in his Olympic Hymn.
The nicknames of the other contestants were not opened. This caused a stir, and Arijoutsi, among others, doubted that the victory of the unknown would go to the honor of well-known composers. There were well-known members in the competition. The voters had identified the composing style of Uuno Klami and Aarre Merikanto, among others. The only Finnish composer who congratulated Linjamaa was Jean Sibelius, who did not take part in the anthem.
Torch relay
The Olympic torch was transported by land from Olympia to Athens from where fire's journey continued in a miner's lamp donated by the Saar Olympic Committee on a SAS plane to Aalborg, Denmark. The glass cover surrounding the lamp was designed by the artist Sakari Tohka. The Olympic torch itself was designed by the artist Aukusti Tuhka.
From Denmark, the torchlight continued by running, cycling, riding, rowing and paddling to Copenhagen, from where the fire was transported by ferry to Sweden to Malmö. The journey of the torch across Sweden was carried to Haparanda by 700 messengers, from where it continued to the Finnish side in Tornio. On the Finnish-Swedish border bridge, the torch was received by Ville Pörhölä, who brought it to Tornio sports ground. The Olympic torch from Tornio, Greece, was connected to Pallastunturi on 6 July 1952 where it ignited the "midnight sun fire". In reality, the Pallastunturi fire was lit with liquefied petroleum gas, because the night in July was cloudy at that time and it was not possible to use the sun as a lighter. From Tornio, the torch traveled through Finland to Helsinki. It was transported by more than 1,200 people.
Initially, the aim was to transport fire to Helsinki via the Soviet Union, but the matter was not settled through diplomacy by the deadline. The journey covered a total of 7,870 kilometres on the journey that began on 25 June and ended on 19 July 1952. The actual Olympic flame was lit for the Olympic Stadium.
Olympic torch relay:
Greece: Olympia – Corinth – Athens
Denmark: Aalborg – Århus – Vejle – Odense – Sorø – Copenhagen
Sweden: Malmö – Helsingborg – Laholm – Gothenburg – Jönköping – Norrköping – Örebro – Stockholm – Uppsala – Falun – Gävle – Hudiksvall – Sundsvall – Umeå – Skellefteå – Boden – Haparanda
Finland: (midnight sun fire): Pallastunturi – Rovaniemi – Tornio – Oulu – Kokkola – Jyväskylä – Tampere – Helsinki
Opening ceremony
The opening ceremony of the Helsinki Olympics was held on 19 July. Although the weather was rainy and chilly and the Olympic Stadium had no roof but on top of the main auditorium, the stadium was full with 70,435 spectators. The inaugural march had a record 5,469 people from 67 countries. After the march, the countries organized themselves into the central lawn, and the chairman of the organizing committee, Erik von Frenckell, spoke in Finnish, Swedish, French and English.
President of the Republic J. K. Paasikivi gave the opening speech, which was the shortest in Olympic history and contained a mistake: it was not the "Fifteenth Olympic Games", but the XV Olympic Games and the 12th World Olympics, due to the 1916, 1940 and 1944 races had been canceled. The speech was followed by the raising of the Olympic flag and the Olympic fanfare composed by Aarre Merikanto. The President's speech was as follows:It gives me great pleasure to address a message of greeting to the young people of the world as they prepare for the fifteenth Olympic Games which are, once again, to be celebrated in a spirit worthy of the ideals of Baron de Coubertin.
This happy cooperation between young people of all countries will serve the great call of concord and peace among the nations of the world.
I am particularly pleased to be sending you this advance greeting because, as a young man, I was myself an enthusiastic gymnast and athlete. And I have retained throughout my life a deep interest in athletics and sports of all kinds.
I am convinced that the Finnish people, loving sport as they do, will spare no effort to make the 1952 Olympic Games a complete success.
The Olympic flame was lit by running heroes Paavo Nurmi (to the stadium) and Hannes Kolehmainen (to the stadium tower). When Paavo Nurmi was announced to arrive at the stadium, athletes from the participating countries deviated from the formation to see the legend better. Only the lines of the Soviet Union and Finland remained in the line.
After the Olympic flame was lit, the Archbishop Ilmari Salomies was due to say a prayer, but German Barbara Rotbraut-Pleyer, nicknamed "White Angel of the Games", had jumped from the auditorium onto the track and ran straight to the speaker's seat. Organizers quickly removed Pleyer, who had time to say just a few words into the microphone. Pleyer's purpose was to proclaim a message of peace. Heikki Savolainen, a gymnast who was competing in his fifth consecutive Olympic games, swore the Olympic oath on behalf of the athletes.
Highlights
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 1947–1949 Palestine war. 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. 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.
The Soviet Union participated for the first time. Soviet Olympic team was notorious for skirting the edge of amateur rules. All Soviet athletes held some nominal jobs, but were in fact state-sponsored and trained full-time. According to many experts, that gave the Soviet Union a huge advantage over the United States and other Western countries, whose athletes were students or real amateurs. Indeed, the Soviet Union monopolized the top place in the medal standings after 1968, and, until its collapse, placed second only once, in the 1984 Winter games, after another Eastern bloc nation, the GDR. Amateur rules were relaxed only in the late 1980s and were almost completely abolished in the 1990s, after the fall of the USSR.
The Soviets 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) Additionally, the Soviet state media falsely claimed victory at these Games, despite the Soviet Union finishing second to the United States both in terms of gold and total medals.
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. (See: 1952 Summer Olympics torch relay.)
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.
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.
Sports events
There were 4,925 athletes from 69 countries, with the Soviet Union making its Olympic debut and Germany participating for the first time since World War II. A total of 149 events were held in 17 different sports.
The most-medalling athletes of the Games were Viktor Chukarin of the Soviet Union, who won four gymnastics Olympic gold medals, and Czechoslovakia's Emil Zátopek, who won three track golds. The United States won the most gold and total medals, with 40 and 76. The host country, Finland, had 6 gold, 3 silver and 13 bronze medals.
Shooting
Shooting was competed in seven events, six of which (rifle sports) were conducted at the Malmi Shooting Range in moderately difficult wind conditions. Tough results were still fired in Helsinki, as the top four deer shooting broke world records. World records for knee position were also broken in free and small rifles. Shotgun shooting took place at the Huopalahti shooting range.