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London, 1948 Olympic Games

The 1948 Olympic Games were held in London, England. These Games were the first Olympics since the war, and Europe was still recovering from the devastation. London was actually awarded the 1944 Games, but due to the onging war it was not held.

image from the 1948 Olympic Games final between Sweden and Yugoslavia

Trivia

• At this time following WWII, food shortages meant that each country was asked to bring food for its own athletes.
• As a consequence of being on the losing side of the WW2, Germany and Japan were not invited to these Games (and Soviet Union declined the invitation), though a record 59 other countries attended.
• On the day the 1948 Olympic Games began at Wembley Stadium in London, June 29, the famed Australian 'Invincibles' cricket side was finishing off England in a test at nearby Lord's, winning by 409 runs.
• These were the first Games to be shown on home television (though very few people in Great Britain actually owned sets).

Athletes

• Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen won four gold medals, the equivalents of the ones Jesse Owens had won twelve years earlier. Fanny was 30 years old and the mother of 2 at the time. She held the world records in the high and long jumps, but did not compete in these, as rules prohibited women from competing in more than three individual events.
• One of members of Czechoslovakia women's gymnastics team, Eliška Misáková, became ill when she arrived in London. Diagnosed with polio, she died on the last day of the Olympics, the same day her remaining teammates won the competition.
• Right-handed Hungarian Karoly Takcaz, a member of the national pistol-shooting team, had that hand shattered by a grenade in 1938. He taught himself to shoot with his left side, and won the gold in the rapid-fire pistol event in 1948.

Related Pages

• list of sports at the 1948 Olympic Games
• Complete list of Olympic host cities
• UK at the Olympic Games
• Videos from the 1948 Olympics
• 1948: The Year in Sport

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